Road Safety Bill

Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2005.

Standing Committee A

Road Safety Bill

Kevin Hughes (Labour, Doncaster North)

The programme motion agreed by the Programming Sub-Committee yesterday appears on the amendment paper. I remind hon. Members that the debate on the programme motion may continue for up to half an hour. I call the Minister to move the motion.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I beg to move, That

(1) during proceedings on the Road Safety Bill the Standing Committee (in addition to its first meeting on Thursday 20th January at 9.25 a.m.) shall meet—

(a) at 2.30 p.m. on Thursday 20th January,

(b) at 9.25 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday 25th January,

(c) at 9.25 a.m. on Thursday 27th January,

(d) at 9.25 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday 1st February and Thursday 3rd February;

(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order, namely, Clauses 1 to 4; Schedule 1; Clauses 5 to 8; Schedule 2; Clause 9; Schedule 3; Clauses 10 to 32; Schedule 4; Clauses 33 to 41; Schedule 5; Clauses 42 to 46; Schedule 6; Clauses 47 to 51; new Clauses; new Schedules; any other proceedings relating to the Bill;

(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.30 p.m. on Thursday 3rd February.

This is a special occasion, Mr. Hughes, because it is the first time that I have been in a Committee under your chairmanship. That is not bad fortune on my part, as I believe that it is the first time that you have chaired a Standing Committee. We wish you well in this venture over the next couple of weeks. I am sure that, with Mr. Pike, you will keep us very much in order.

May I also say what a pleasure it is to be sitting here with hon. Gentlemen who are almost friends nowadays, the hon. Members for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), as well as their colleagues on the Opposition Benches, and of course my colleagues on the Government Benches? I hope that we will have a productive time scrutinising the Bill.

The Bill contains many good measures and I think that it will have widespread support inside and outside the House; indeed, I know that it does. There are issues relating to how far we go in certain areas and whether we should put more into the Bill, but I am sure that we will cover those matters adequately in the time available.

We had a good and full debate on Second Reading, and I am pleased to see in the Committee so many hon. Members who contributed so well to it. The tone of the debate was very constructive and largely consensual, and I hope that that will continue into our debates in the Committee.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Hughes. I know that you come here with massive experience. Although you are only newly qualified, you have got rid of your L-plates and do not need any P-plates. I am sure that we will all benefit from your adjudications during the proceedings.

I also thank the Minister for his kind remarks. There is indeed now a bit of a team on the Government, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Front Benches. What the Committee shares with other recent Committees dealing with transport issues is a lack of interest in what is going from among the other parties, particularly the nationalist parties. However, we probably do not need to come back to that, as none of them is represented on this Committee, apparently at their own request.

The Minister did not make it clear that the programme motion was not approved unanimously. We voted against it because we do not see the need for such prescription as it sets out. We welcome the Minister's assurance that, if we need more time, the Government will be flexible about that. If the Minister were not under pressure from others in his party, he would probably have agreed that the Committee could sit without the benefit of timetabling. However, we take at face value his commitment to ensure that the Bill is properly scrutinised.

Conservative Members have tabled a number of amendments, as well as some new clauses. I hope that, because this is a miscellaneous Bill, there will be enough time to discuss the new clauses. I know that the Bill has been criticised by some road safety interests as a bit of a hotch-potch, but, because it is so wide-ranging, it gives people an opportunity to put forward their own ideas for changing and improving our road traffic law. I hope that we will have a chance to discuss some of those ideas in the debates on new clauses.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

May I, too, welcome you to the chair, Mr. Hughes, and say that we look forward to deliberating on this Bill under your benign tutelage? I thank the Minister for his kind words. As the hon. Member for Christchurch said, we have become something of a team in transport matters, and our deliberations have been characterised by some sensible debates, which have enabled us, on occasion, to improve the Bill under consideration, and certainly to find out what the Government are proposing. I thank the Minister also for the briefing that he arranged with his officials, which I and other Opposition colleagues found useful.

As the Minister said, this is a Bill that all sides of the House generally support. It has some good measures. However, there are areas where it can usefully be strengthened, and we will see whether the Government look favourably on some of our suggestions. Some clauses may have consequences that need to be teased out, and we hope that the Minister will put on record exactly what the Government's intentions are.

We are content with the programme motion. We believe that there is sufficient time, and we hope that we will be able to get through the business and thoroughly consider the Bill in the time available.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I join the welcome given to your chairmanship, Mr. Hughes. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch referred to the absence of the nationalist parties from this Committee, but I did not understand his point, because he and I were recently members of the Committee on the Railways Bill to which a nationalist Member had been appointed, and apart from one brief appearance he did not bother to turn up. It does not make much difference whether nationalist Members are nominated to serve in Committee.

The programme motion is not needed, and I rise to register my objection to it. We have on this Committee two experienced Whips, and having had experience of the Government Whip and my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) on other Committees, I have found that they are fair, professional and experienced, and can well deal with business matters through the usual channels without the necessity of this motion.

I know that Government Members sometimes get bored and irritated by the Opposition regularly opposing programme motions on the Floor of the House. Perhaps it is appropriate that I explain why I join my colleagues in voting against such motions and why I am not happy to see this programme motion today. As you will know, Mr. Hughes, during the term of the previous Conservative Government I was the Government deputy Chief Whip, and the time came when we decided that some changes were necessary to our procedures. We asked a team of people to examine them, and the Jopling report was produced. I was asked to see the then Prime Minister, John Major, who made it quite clear that he wanted to implement the report, but gave me clear instructions that no part of the report was to be implemented unless it had the consent of the then Labour Opposition. I then embarked on discussions with Don Dixon, now Lord Dixon, who was at that time Labour's deputy Chief Whip, and over a period of months we agreed what parts of the Jopling reforms would be acceptable to the Opposition. Only the acceptable parts were implemented.

The problem with programme motions, and the reason that Government Members must go through the Lobbies week after week to support them while we oppose them, is that the current regime has been imposed without consent. I think it was the now Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who introduced those provisions, and they did not have the consent of the Opposition. It is right and proper that we continue to register our objection to a system on which we have not been consulted and that we do not agree with.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I, too, welcome you to the Chair of the Committee, Mr. Hughes. It will be a pleasure, and I hope that it will be fun for you too. I will save time by not making a point of order, as I usually do because I got my knuckles severely rapped by the Chair a long time ago for taking my jacket off without asking for permission. So, when you call a vote, if you say whether you are prepared to tolerate the sight of Wilshire in his shirt sleeves, I will be eternally grateful. [Interruption.] My ties crop up regularly in debate. The reason for this tie is that yesterday certain members of the Labour party told me that they did not believe that I had such an awful tie as the one that I was wearing, so I found this one, which is, I think, even worse.

At the outset, Mr. Hughes, I also ask whether you will accept a general apology from me. There is a sense of deja vu about our proceedings. On Tuesday, we were talking about railways, and on Thursday we are talking about road safety. So, if I start talking about the railways, point out that I am out of order, but forgive me, because I have not got my mind round this job yet. I hope that there will not be a third subject.

Some people have heard me say that the Opposition are opposed to the motion in principle. The unfortunate thing for those who have heard me talk about the subject before is that some members of the Committee have not done so. It is therefore necessary to put on the record why the Government are being undemocratic—wearing their jackboots and stamping all over the democracy of the United Kingdom. I believe that the matter is serious. Every time that they ask us to approve a programme motion, the Government are saying that they could not care less about the quality of legislation or about providing a reasonable voice for those who disagree, but want their legislation by a set date come hell or high water. We can say or do what we like, but they will have their legislation even if it has not been discussed properly. In my book, that is not democracy. That is why we will always oppose such motions in principle.

In the time that I have been a Whip on Bills, many have run into the sand. It is possible that we will. Although there were 39 sittings of one Committee, we considered less than half the clauses. Some people say, ''Well, if there is no timetable, the Opposition will take advantage of the situation.'' It takes one to know one; I remember sitting in this very Room as a member of the Standing Committee considering the community charge legislation. We were here for about four months, not because of anything that I and Government Back Benchers said but because of the endless ramblings of the then Opposition, which, as they were not ruled out of order, were just about in order. I assume that the great worry that the Government have when introducing programme motions is that we might behave as they used to. Perhaps they are criticising themselves rather than us.

It seems to me that the important thing to consider about the programme motion, which was the argument that the Government used when suggesting to me the number of sittings that we ought to have for the Bill, is whether the time will be sufficient. I will return to the point that the Minister made in a minute. If one adds up the number of hours made available, then, working on the assumption that we finish at about 5 o'clock—that may not be the case, I know—we are likely to sit for about 25 hours. When I first came to the House, there was a convention that a guillotine could not be asked for in Standing Committee until the Committee had been sitting for about 100 hours. That gives an indication of the truncation of debate that is taking place.

I will turn to the specifics of what is being suggested. Although I object in principle, I intend no criticism of the usual channels. We have a good working relationship and, despite the constraint that the Government cannot agree to what I want and I will never agree to a programme motion in principle, we talk to each other. I cannot speak for Government Members, but I assure you, Mr. Hughes, that although I object to what they are doing, I will try to make the process as pain-free as I can. I do not want anybody to think that there has been a breakdown in the usual channels of communication before we start.

When the Minister introduced the motion and told us that it was okay, he said that we will cover all the Bill in the time available. If he is that good at predicting the future, could he please tell me the winner of the 2.30 this afternoon, at whatever race course they are racing at? I would make a fortune. It appears that he knows before we start how we are going to get on. I dispute that. Issues could arise that will take longer than we think, or we could finish earlier. There are those who think that my business is to ensure that we take as long as possible, and I am afraid that I upset those people. The Minister nods. He takes the view that, just because I stand up and speak, I am determined to see that the Committee runs its time. If only he had bothered to read the Hansard report of Tuesday's sitting of the Standing Committee on the Railways Bill; he would have discovered that although I was the Whip on that Committee—my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) were there as well—we finished with a sitting in hand. As it turned out, it was not necessary to continue, but we did not know that when we started.

It is possible that, in this case, we may finish before 3 February, but it is equally possible that we may finish on 3 February only because of a guillotine that insists that we do and that there will be unconsidered business. It ought to be possible in grown-up politics for the Government to be prepared to be reasonable about democracy and reasonable with the Opposition. On 6 May, they will be in opposition and they will discover that some of the rules that they have made to try to silence us will cause them great difficulty. If I were them I would, if nothing else, learn from other people. They should have some idea of what is in this for them in the future.

There is one other thing. In the Programming Sub-Committee last night, the Minister, to whom I am grateful because I know that he was genuinely and sincerely trying to help us, said that we could overcome the difficulties of lack of time by sitting late—that from the party that wanted to modernise this place so that we did not sit late. The best that he can do is to say that we will keep on sitting. I will be interested to see how he votes next Wednesday in the debate on the sitting hours.

On principle, the motion is wrong because it tramples on democracy, and in practice, it means that, in certain circumstances, if we were to do justice to the issues raised, the Minister would want us to sit into the evening or all night. That cannot be sensible and it certainly cannot be democratic. I hope that you will allow a Division, Mr. Hughes.

Kevin Hughes (Labour, Doncaster North)

May I respond to the question about gentlemen Members and jackets first? When I am in the Chair, gentlemen Members can assume that they may remove their jackets—but I am not agreeing to anything else after that.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

Not even my tie?

Kevin Hughes (Labour, Doncaster North)

Not even that.

Question put:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 12, Noes 4.

Kevin Hughes (Labour, Doncaster North)

I remind the Committee that there is a money resolution and a ways and means resolution in connection with the Bill. Copies of the resolutions are available in the Room. I also remind Members that adequate notice should be given of any amendments. As a general rule, my co-Chairman and I do not intend to call starred amendments. I ask Members to switch off mobile phones and pagers, or at least to put them on silent mode, please.

Clause 1 - Road safety grants

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, at beginning insert 'Subject to subsection (3)'.

Kevin Hughes (Labour, Doncaster North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 12, at end add—

'(3) No road safety grant shall be paid to any organisation which comprises or is part of a safety camera partnership.'.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The amendment tries to probe the Government a bit further on road safety grants. I do not believe that anyone is opposed to expenditure on road safety. Indeed, many people would criticise the Government for not having invested enough in it. Nor are we against giving grants. However, we would like the Minister to explain why the safety camera partnerships that have been set up in almost every area of the country, and which comprise local authorities, police authorities and others, are not able to spend their resources on road safety in the way in which this clause says that money can be spent. If the partnerships were able to spend money on road safety without constraint, there would be no need for the clause.

My second question, of which I gave notice, is about how clause 1 interacts with clause 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill. It is becoming increasingly difficult to follow road traffic law, as the Government are introducing so many different pieces of legislation that affect road safety. Indeed, many are being debated in this House at the same time. Clauses in this Bill and in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill deal with insurance. This clause authorises road safety grants, and clause 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill makes provision for payments by the Secretary of State to police authorities for the prevention, detection and enforcement of traffic offences in respect of seat belts, lighting, insurance, licences, test certificates, inadequate registration marks and so on. If such payments can be made under clause 132 of that Bill for the prevention of traffic offences, why is clause 1 necessary in this Bill?

Perhaps the Minister could discuss clause 132, which is, in essence, a Department of Transport clause in a Home Office Bill, and also the problem that I have identified. The notes on clauses for the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill contained absolutely nothing about why clause 132 is necessary, what it hoped to achieve and what sums of money might be at stake.

I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to some of those questions and explain in some detail why he feels that safety camera partnerships should not be able to re-invest their proceeds. They are awash with money as a result of the Government's policy of increasing the number of penalties through the establishment of fixed cameras.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I can understand my hon. Friend's argument, but will he reassure me that any provision that the Bill makes for safety partnerships will run only for 108 days, because when Labour lose the next election, we intend to abolish the wretched things?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We intend to get away from unnecessary bureaucracy, and we regard the safety camera partnerships as unnecessarily bureaucratic. There is nothing that they do that cannot be done by the police authorities on their own. Indeed, there is a system of divide and rule that is causing a lot of confusion for the public. I have passed on correspondence from constituents to the police authority, which has replied, ''That has nothing to do with us. It is the responsibility of the safety camera partnership.'' Similarly, the local authority said, ''It has nothing to do with us. It's the responsibility of the safety camera partnerships.''

The partnerships have a lot of money. I estimate the yield from fines to be between £60 million and £100 million per annum because the number of speeding offences has increased under the Government from about 600,000 in 1996 to the best part of 4 million, based on the figures available.

The partnerships have an enormous amount of income and many people might ask why some of that money cannot be reinvested on speed indicator signs, so that people are warned that they are exceeding the speed limit. Those signs do not incur any penalty if one does not comply with them, but they have a good impact in improving road safety and ensuring that people reduce their speed. The trouble is that it costs money to put those signs up, and many local authorities say that they have not got the resources to do that. Why have they not got those resources? Because the Government will not allow them to reinvest the money that is coming into safety camera partnerships from fines because the money is being sent to the Home Office.

The only money that can be reinvested from safety camera partnerships is in propaganda, which has always been the top priority of the Government, and in putting up more cameras. We believe that prevention is better than cure, and we would like to see some of the money being invested in road safety measures, through engineering and education. We shall come on later to discuss driver-improvement courses.

Even the administration of those courses can require funds. The courses run under the auspices of many police authorities, such as the BikeSafe courses, require money. We believe that it would be much simpler if those road safety measures could be funded out of fine and penalty income, rather than have that income going to the Government to be recycled and churned, creating a lot more bureaucracy and work for officialdom and reducing the amount of money available for front-line road safety improvements. I hope that the Minister will answer some of our concerns.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I suppose that one could argue narrowly that speed camera partnerships do not directly promote road safety. They promote, or rather prosecute and pursue, the detection of offences. It would help the Committee if the Minister explained the scope of the definition of road safety in the clause. The sort of things we all initially think of are education—educating drivers to drive better and more safely—sensible traffic signing, and traffic-calming measures, including the increasing use of electronic flashing signs, which I welcome because that they are effective.

Those are the sort of measures that most of us associate with ''promoting road safety'' and it would certainly help me to decide where I stand on this group of amendments if the Minister gave the Committee some examples of measures that might be promoted under the clause.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I rise to speak specifically to the amendments. The generality of speed cameras may be better and more fully debated later in the Bill, so I shall not test your patience, Mr. Hughes, by drifting out of order into a general discussion of road safety.

I feel constrained and those who have the same sense of deja vu as I do will have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire occasionally but cruelly disagreeing with what I thought at the time were sensible amendments to the Railways Bill. Perhaps they will forgive me if I say that I am slightly worried about their otherwise marvellous amendment. The wretched safety camera partnerships are bureaucracies that too often persecute motorists; I shall talk about that under a later clause.

The principle of giving them the power to spend the money they raise is fine, but why not make the money do something good, such as improving road safety? I can buy into that principle, but what worries me is that the amendment would provide yet another reason for the cameras to be used for general money raising, which is what some of them are used for at the moment. Knowing how some of them operate, if they could spend the money that they raised on road safety—we all agree that road safety is a good idea—many would succumb to the temptation to fleece motorists even more for a good cause. If my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will forgive me, I think that the amendment contains a slight technical snag.

However, I warm to amendment No. 2, which states:

''No road safety grant shall be paid to any organisation which comprises or is part of a safety camera partnership''.

My hon. Friend will tell me if I misunderstand his intention, but I take that to mean that no grant of any sort could be paid to any council or police force that supports those wretched bureaucracies. That would certainly focus their minds on getting rid of them and we might not then need to legislate to do so. I commend amendment No. 2 to the Committee wholeheartedly for the purpose of destroying the bureaucracies rather than anything else.

If my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch wants to pursue the matter, I hope that he shares my enthusiasm for amendment No. 2 and will reflect on my minor reservation about amendment No. 1.

Andrew Rosindell (Conservative, Romford)

I speak as a London Member of Parliament. I represent an outer London constituency and, unfortunately, we suffer greatly from being lumped into partnerships and bodies stretching all the way across London. The safety camera partnership is an example of that. People in my constituency have often asked for road safety implementation cameras, but, because we are part of London, the decision is always to focus resources on inner London and to ignore areas such as the London borough of Havering and my constituency of Romford.

I strongly endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire and my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Spelthorne said about the two amendments. I believe that the camera partnerships are a complete and utter waste of money and totally bureaucratic. My greatest objection is to the lack of flexibility and local control.

I used to be a local councillor in Romford, and represented a village on the edge of London called Havering-atte-Bower. It is a very hilly village with narrow lanes. Many accidents have occurred over the years, with several fatalities. Yet, despite everything that we have done locally to try and get a camera installed, the London camera partnership tell us that that is simply not acceptable and that it does not meet the criteria. So even if the police and the local council and residents want a camera, they cannot have one because funding is not directed to my area but to central London and other areas of London where this so-called partnership decides the cameras are going to be of greater use.

The lack of local control, the lack of flexibility and the failure of these partnerships to recognise the needs of local communities—particularly those of villages, like the one I have mentioned—indicates to me that any money directed to these organisations is a waste. I therefore strongly endorse the amendments.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

This clause and these innocent little amendments have certainly lifted the lid on the clear differences between Conservative Members. We have four Conservative Members, who appear to have four different views on safety and cameras.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

Would the hon. Gentleman like to wait in expectation until all five of us are here?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

It would be instructive to get some further views; we may even have five Members competing with their difference views. If I can just throw in a fifth element—for the hon. Members for Romford (Mr. Rosindell) and for Spelthorne, perhaps—the safety camera partnerships have widespread support among their colleagues in local government. Most of the partnerships are supported by Conservatives in local government, who not only support them but actively pursue having cameras put in local communities. They are pursuing that because they are the people on the ground closest to the problems in their community. In many cases they are responding to the concerns of their constituents about speeding. They know that when the cameras are installed, there is a substantial reduction in the number of casualties on the stretches of road concerned.

In a way, I am sorry; I thought that I had been helpful last year when the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) took a polarised view of this issue. I provided information and an explanation and I thought that perhaps the Conservatives' view might change somewhat on this and that they might come to some sense. That is clearly not the case.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I listened to the Minister's fiction with some amusement. His explanation as to why at least one Conservative-controlled county council is enthusiastic is totally wrong. Has he not heard about Surrey county council, which has decided to set one of these things up? They have made it quite clear that they have no intention of adding any more cameras and that the only reason they have done it is that they are so grossly underfunded by the Government's police grant that they have no alternative but to try to defray the cost of their cameras by fleecing the motorists.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

That is totally wrong. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to look at some of the other authorities; I have a list here of the partnerships. I know from personal contact and from the many letters that we have received from councillors and from some of the portfolio holders of the highways budgets how they have supported the cameras in their communities. The hon. Member for Spelthorne may want to connect with his colleagues in local government, because they have a different view from the one that he has expressed in the Committee.

Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 would amend the clause so that a national transport authority—the Secretary of State for England or the National Assembly for Wales—could not provide payments to any organisation that formed part of a safety camera partnership. A partnership is a voluntary grouping that enables the police forces and highway authorities to operate cameras effectively. Virtually all highway authorities in England are now involved in the partnerships, regardless of the political party running the authority.

Our main purpose in amending section 40 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 is to clarify the scope for funding large-scale demonstration projects, to provide uncomplicated funding arrangements for local authorities that undertake such projects and to improve the administrative arrangements. Under the rules that we apply to the safety camera partnerships, money is available to them to fund the safety camera operational expenditure through camera revenue netting-off arrangements. Under our strict guidelines, authorities can use the funds for that purpose only.

I know that the hon. Member for Christchurch introduced safety cameras when was a Transport Minister. I think that he did a good job. I commend him, as I have on many other occasions, for having had the good sense to introduce them. We have taken the policy somewhat further. At the time, the hon. Gentleman predicted that 2 million tickets a year would be issued. It has taken 13 or 14 years to reach the number that he predicted in 1990; his predictions were right, but it took a little time.

We have laid down a strict code of conduct for the partnerships, so that cameras cannot be placed anywhere simply to raise revenue. They must be placed on a stretch of road where, first, speeding takes place and, secondly, there is a record of death and injury. Over a period of about 13 months I have asked Opposition Members to let me know if they know of any cameras that do not meet those guidelines. There are about 5,000 cameras in the country. I constantly ask this question, but not a single camera has been brought to my attention during those 13 months. I assume from that that the partnerships are operating within the rules and that the authorities, many of them Conservative, are operating carefully within the rules and improving road safety in their area.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

Do those guidelines also apply to mobile camera sites? If not, what are the guidelines for siting mobile units?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

If it is helpful to the right hon. Gentleman, I can get him the full set of guidelines. Yes, they do apply to mobile sites. There is greater flexibility. The police have the ability to set up a mobile site outside the remit of the partnerships if they have concerns about a stretch of road: they would not receive the funding revenue from the fines. They can set them up at any time, at the chief constable's discretion, and usually in response to concerns about speeding. I think that about 10 per cent. of the sites in the partnership are mobile sites.

The hon. Member for Christchurch spoke as though a large amount of excess money was available from the partnership. In round figures, about £120 million was collected in fines last year and about £100 million returned to the partnerships. The partnerships include local authorities, the police, the judiciary and, in some cases, health authorities. The money is returned to them so that they can operate the cameras and—this is the important point—so that operation of the cameras is not a burden on the wider budget of the local authority or the police. The cameras do not take money away from fighting forms of crime other than speeding on the roads.

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

Is the hon. Member for Christchurch right in saying that such organisations cannot reinvest money in warning signs? If so, why is that the case? It seems eminently sensible to prevent rather than prosecute. If there is a good reason why they should not invest in warning signs, could my hon. Friend the Minister explain it to the Committee?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Part of the guidance for the siting of the cameras is that they must be conspicuous. They are painted yellow so that they are obvious. We do not want to catch people but to slow them down at sites where there have been the most casualties. The cameras must be clearly signed and advertised as well; that, too, is part of the guidance. Again, if my hon. Friend would like a copy of the guidance, I would be happy to provide one.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. A helpful offer has been made twice to provide documentation to colleagues. Perhaps it would be a good idea if the whole Committee were to get a copy.

Kevin Hughes (Labour, Doncaster North)

That is not a point of order, but I take on board the hon. Gentleman's request. I am sure that the Minister will do so as well.

Mr. Jamieson rose—

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I will in just a moment. There are so many things happening just now.

The rules are available in the Library, of course, and it is not necessary for me to provide them for Members. However, if that would be helpful, I am sure that we can pass a few copies around and provide some interesting bedside reading for Members.

To complete the point that I was making to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), proper signing, warning and advertising are all part of the package that safety camera partnerships must accept.

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

On a point of clarification, the signs to which I referred are the infrequent but helpful signs that are just a warning. They alert people by flashing up that they are doing more than 37 mph. As a motorist, I find them salutary indeed. One immediately responds to them, and I would have thought that they would be more effective than the threat of a camera and likely prosecution.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

Yes, local authorities may place signs outside of the partnership arrangements at certain times. The Highways Agency sometimes puts them up on or near roadworks. A partnership can pay for vehicle-activated signs, but only at camera sites where there has been a certain level of speeding or death and injury. Such signs can be paid for out of partnership funds. Any highways authority or, I suppose, the police could pay for them outside of the partnership arrangement if they thought that that was appropriate.

Generally, I am very much of the mind that the signs are good. They should be used as a first resort, particularly if there is a problem for a certain period of time. They provide a useful adjunct to the rest of the partnership.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

I wanted to help my hon. Friend by making it clear that the rules and guidance about where to site safety cameras are contained not in a secret document but in a handbook that is published every year. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced on 4 November 2004 in a written statement at column 16WS in Hansard that this year's handbook had been produced and that copies were available in the Library.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

Yes, he did. I thank my hon. Friend for that. The document is freely available. The local authorities and the police have it and it is in the Library.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

The Minister referred to signage for speed cameras and said that the purpose of speed cameras was to reduce speed, not to catch motorists speeding. If that is the case, why can there not be signage before the speed camera to warn that it is 100 yd away? Instead of having generic signs which are spread all over the place and all down the side of the road, why can we not have a sign that says, ''100 yd'', with a picture of a speed camera? At least that would stop motorists looking for the yellow cameras and then slamming on their brakes at the last second. They would be given an opportunity to slow down in a reasonable manner.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. At the vast majority of sites motorists are warned in advance. It staggers me that people get caught on the cameras because they are so well flagged up. There are websites and press releases; the vast majority of cameras have a sign beforehand saying that they are coming up; and they are painted yellow so that they can be seen, yet there are still people exceeding the speed limit.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

The Minister and I both travel to the same part of the country. I was surprised to hear his comments because I regularly drive on the A303 and no speed camera that I know of on that road has a pre-warning sign. There are generic signs that indicate that there are speed cameras on the road, but they do not warn that there is speed camera 100 yd away.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman wants a policeman to stand at the side of the road and tell people to slow down because there is a speed camera up ahead. The cameras are clearly painted and they are signed beforehand—although not at a specific distance. There are areas with mobile sites and there are often several signs along the road. To relate that to the area near his constituency, I can think of parts of the A38 that have mobile sites on the bridges, in places where there has been death and injury through excess speed. There are regular signs along that stretch of the road alerting motorists that a mobile site could be in operation.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I am not arguing about mobile sites because that is a slightly different issue. However, where there is a fixed camera on a pole, and the purpose is to slow people down, as the Minister said, we could stop them having to look for the yellow camera and then break when they come to that point by having a warning sign that says, ''100 yd''.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. The document that we are going to be provided with shortly states:

''All safety camera sites within the Safety Camera Programme must be signed in accordance with the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions. This ensures that all sites whether fixed, mobile or red light are clearly highlighted to motorists thus giving them every opportunity to moderate their speed to within the posted speed limit or to stop at a red light.''

If he knows of some sites that do not meet those criteria, he should bring it to the attention of Devon county council and the partnership. I am sure that they will take the appropriate action.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

The point that the Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) is making is that sites should be specifically signed and that there should not be generic permanent signs on a stretch of road when there is no camera in place. There should be a specific sign. If it is the Minister's policy that cameras should always be visible, why, on many occasions, do employees of the camera partnership hide in the back of an unmarked white van which has been specially converted so that the rear window drops down to enable them to film through it? Why are they not standing by the roadside in bright orange jackets, making themselves visible?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

The people that the right hon. Gentleman says are hiding in the van are the police, for whom we have high regard. They are catching people who are breaking the law and who are contributing to killing and injuring children and other people on our roads. Mobile sites are clearly signed. In some cases, the police or the partnership advertise when they are going to set up a site, with a view not to catching people, but to getting them to slow down.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

The Minister is being contradictory. I accept what my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire says. If the police hide in the back of vans, so that one does not know they are there, it is an argument for hiding fixed cameras in hedges. The Government have accepted that we should not do that, and that fixed cameras should be made visible. Surely to goodness, consistency means that police should not hide in the back of unmarked vans.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire said that the police were hiding in the back of the van. The vans are usually police vans and they are very conspicuous, but if he has a complaint about that in his constituency, he should raise it with the partnership. However we pick over this point, the sites are signed and the police catch only people who are exceeding the speed limit and breaking the law in areas where there has been death and injury due to people speeding.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

On the distinction between the vans with mobile speed cameras, the officer in the van has discretion over whether to photograph and do someone for speeding. They will make a judgment within bounds and by what is on the road. A fixed camera takes a photograph when a pre-determined speed has been reached. The Minister keeps saying that those cameras are signed, but let us make it clear: fixed speed cameras are not signed to say that there is a speed camera within a certain distance.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

The hon. Gentleman is quite right. With cameras operated from the back of a van, a degree of judgment is left to the police officer in the back of a van about a particular motorist and the danger that they might cause at a particular site. He is right to say that there is no specific sign standing at a certain distance from a speed camera; nevertheless, they are signed in the area in which they are placed. If he wants to present an argument that they should be signed differently, he may want to see if he can get some interest locally. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) said, we annually review the guidance on this matter, and if the hon. Gentleman thinks that we can improve it, I would be happy to consider what he has to say. We considered a large number of representations last time and we made several helpful changes, so if he wants to contribute to that, it will be his major contribution to the Committee and road safety.

The hon. Member for Christchurch raised a point about clause 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill. It is not for me to speak to that Bill in this Committee, but I can say that it legislates for the fines that have been generated by the automatic number plate recognition cameras. Some of that money will be hypothecated to the police. Again, as we are putting so much extra money into the police, it represents more money that is not being diverted from the tackling of other crime. It is money from those detection cameras that can be used. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's point relates to any of our discussions.

This has been an illuminating debate. We have spent a long time discussing speed safety cameras, which was, I suppose, almost inevitable. Some of the grants that we have given to local authorities, which this clause will make much easier to provide in the future, have been used to great effect. I say to the hon. Gentleman that they are far in excess of the revenue from fines that the Exchequer currently holds on to. It retains about £20 million, which goes into the Consolidated Fund.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central will know that his constituency has benefited from a grant given to his local authority. I wrote to him earlier in the year. The local authority has been providing extra facilities in Stoke-on-Trent. They may not be specifically in his constituency, but they are certainly in Stoke-on-Trent. Moneys were focused specifically on authorities, such as Manchester and Blackpool, which had a high rate of child deaths on their roads. Many of those authorities are introducing innovative schemes to improve road safety for children. The clause enables us to provide funding for those schemes freely, without requiring the bureaucracy of going through the House with a special order each time we want to fund a scheme.

The amendments would prevent any authority that was in a camera partnership—in other words, virtually every authority in the country, whether controlled by the Tories, by Labour or by the Liberal Democrats—from receiving one of those grants. That totally contradicts what the hon. Member for Christchurch said he wanted. On the one hand, he said that we should take more money from the cameras. Should we put it into road safety? The hon. Member for Spelthorne said, ''Let's get rid of those wretched things'', which would mean less money going to the authorities. On the other hand, he opened his speech by saying that we should spend more money on road safety. Perhaps, as the Committee proceeds, the Opposition will provide more clarity on those matters. They have certainly not provided any yet.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

The Minister says that there is bureaucracy—special orders are needed for each grant—and that we will sweep that bureaucracy away. My concern is about scrutiny and accountability. Is it intended that the Department will make an annual report to Parliament of the grants that it has given?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

All the Department's expenditure is open to scrutiny by the House, as is that of every other Department. The grants are generally not given out in advance, but are provided as recompense for a scheme that has been carried out. So, if the authority does not carry out the scheme according to the specific guidelines that we set out and the specific case that it made for the funding, it will not be given the money. There is that safeguard. We check carefully to make sure that the money will be used for the purpose that we intended and that it does not drift off to be used for a purpose not related to road safety.

This has been an illuminating debate. I hope that the power and strength of the arguments that I have put forward against the amendments mean that the Committee will resist them.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I want to add a couple of points to what the Minister said. They would, I am sure, have been too long for an intervention.

At the risk of being accused by the Minister of being inconsistent, I say that I subscribe to the view that politicians need to be pragmatists. Therefore, although I object to speed cameras, which the debate is partly about, I am prepared to address the issue on the basis that they may continue. In that context, the Minister might like to reflect on a couple of things.

The first is the point that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central made well. I want to reinforce that point. Making it possible to spend the money made by safety camera partnerships should be high on the list of priorities. I vouch for the fact that those flashing lights have a salutary effect. There are a number of them in my constituency. My constituents say that they find them useful and that they slow people down. So, if spending the money that partnerships make is not possible and if the Bill as phrased does not make it possible, I join the hon. Gentleman in trying to persuade the Minister to make a practical change so that it becomes possible.

My other point arises from what the hon. Member for Teignbridge said. I do not come from his part of the world, but from God's own county, Somerset, so I know the A303 well. When I go down that road, a couple of cameras concern me. They are not in built-up areas. One generally knows if one is in an area with a speed limit of 30 mph, so, if one sees a camera, one knows that it is checking that one is doing 30 mph. On the open road, of which the A303 is an example, there are bits that have 50 mph limits, because they are dangerous. Other parts have no speed limit, which means that the limit is 60 mph if the road is a single carriageway. One of the cameras that I have in mind is in a 50 mph area, and a couple of others cover the 60 mph bit. There can be signs that say what the limit is, but one is never quite sure.

One can drive along a bit of road where it is permissible to go at 60 mph and see a camera looming. There is a sign showing that it is there, and at the last minute one thinks, ''Is the limit 60, 50, or 40?'' One often finds oneself behind someone who jams on their brakes thinking that the limit might be 30, even though traffic behind is legally doing 55 or 60 mph. I suggest to the Minister that if he intends to stick with that, the speed limit should be placed on the camera. I accept the argument that the hon. Member for Teignbridge uses about more specific signs, which I will not go into further because he has made the point. I would like to make a plea for putting the speed limit on each camera so that someone does not whack on their brakes at the last minute and cause an accident where people go into the back of them.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I said at the outset that this was a probing amendment, and it has been very useful to that end. Far from disclosing disagreements on my side, it has pointed out some of the inconsistencies in the Government's approach which we shall return to when we discuss clause 17, which relates to the question whether the Government really want motorists to know in advance that a speed camera is in position, or whether they want to take motorists by surprise and obtain a fine from them.

I am grateful to my right hon. and hon. Friends for their contributions to the debate, and I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central for highlighting one of the points from my opening remarks. I would like to return to that point. The Minister has told us that £120 million in fines is collected, of which £100 million is being recycled to help to run the cameras, meaning that there is a surplus of £20 million. Why is that £20 million not available for reinvestment in speed indicator warning signs, in positions where there are no speed cameras? I do not think that the Minister has answered that question, and I will happily give way to him if he wishes to address that point.

From discussions with a county councillor in Dorset, Councillor Ann Warman, I know that she has been trying to have such signs installed on the B3081 between Ringwood and Verwood, a road that is largely within the boundary of Hampshire country council. There have been six fatalities on that road in as many years. The council says that it cannot afford to put up a speed indicator warning sign because it has only one mobile sign and cannot afford to put up fixed signs.

Dorset county council has invested in six mobile signs using its own resources, but it would be much better, and we would have many more of those speed indicator warning signs, if we were able to reinvest the money from the penalties imposed at speed camera sites. The Minister has said that £20 million goes straight into the Treasury coffers; if that money were invested in speed indicator warning signs, I venture to suggest that there would be a manifest improvement in road safety.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I do not know the record of the road that the hon. Gentleman just described, but I point out for clarification that if Hampshire, Dorset or any of the other authorities to which he refers wanted to place a vehicle-activated sign, and the road met the criteria for having a camera, the partnership could provide vehicle-activated signs. Judging from the death and injury that he describes on that road, he should pursue the matter with the local authority.

There is no security to the excess money, the money that goes to the Consolidated Fund. We hope that the figure will fall, because we want fewer people to be fined, not more, so trying to fund projects with that money would not give local authorities any security. It is better to fund them through my Department, which can securely attach certain funds to certain projects.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister's last point is rather weak. When there is a surplus, the money could surely be reinvested in road safety measures. I am not suggesting that extra money should be spent when there is not a surplus.

As to the issue about fixed cameras as against speed indicator warning signs, a fixed camera is of limited use on local roads where accidents take place along a whole stretch of road. Local people get to know where a speed camera is; they slow down, then they can accelerate away. However, a speed indicator warning sign warns motorists, whether they know the road well or not, that it is, in a sense, an accident blackspot and that their speed is exceeding the limit.

Another point that has emerged is that the cost of administering the safety camera partnerships has now risen to as much as £100 million. One is bound to ask whether, if one had £100 million to invest in improving road safety, one would put it into safety camera partnerships and speed cameras, as we do, or into another mix of investment. As I have said before, I think that the Government are spending too little money on engineering and education and putting too much effort and expenditure into cameras.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

Does not the hon. Gentleman find it difficult to argue consistently against speed cameras when independent research has verified that accidents in the vicinity of speed cameras can be reduced by up to 40 per cent.?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

No, I do not find that difficult to argue, because a much better return can be obtained from safety improvements, such as putting up a safety barrier or building a dual carriageway where there is a single carriageway. One can get a return like that from all sorts of measures. The idea that only by installing a safety camera can one get any return on investment and a reduction in serious and fatal accidents is mistaken. One of the troubles with speed cameras is that they are sometimes used as a substitute for road engineering measures.

Some members of the Committee will be familiar, for example, with the A30 between Exeter and Cornwall. Along that road there is a speed camera for eastbound traffic which is close to a dangerous junction. The camera causes people on that carriageway—most of whom are doing in excess of 70 mph—to reduce their speed, but it has not done anything to improve the overall safety of the junction. The best way of improving its overall safety in the long term would be to have a grade separated junction as there is on another part of that road; the Minister knows that part of the world. If all those junctions on the A30 between Exeter and Truro were grade separated road safety would be much enhanced and there would not be a need for the speed camera.

I do not buy into the argument that the only way of achieving improved road safety is by sticking up a speed camera. Indeed, often the impact of these cameras is that they just encourage people to think that the only place where they have to comply with the limit is where there is a speed camera in position.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I am listening very carefully to what the hon. Member has said. Could he just help the Committee? He has largely argued against speed cameras. Could he now tell us what was the thinking back in the late '80s and in the early '90s when he introduced the cameras?

Kevin Hughes (Labour, Doncaster North)

Order. I have allowed a fairly wide-ranging debate on the amendments but I will not be taken advantage of. We are not, in this clause, debating the merits of the cameras.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I have no regrets whatsoever about introducing the power to have camera enforcement in the Road Traffic Act 1991. It has been at its best at traffic lights.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

Yes.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am glad that the Minister agrees, because there can be no excuse whatsoever for going through a red traffic light. The more motorists who are caught and banged to rights for breaking traffic light rules the better. I am concerned, however, that they are now being used in such large numbers as a substitute for engineering and education improvements rather than as an end in themselves of helping enforcement. I will not go on with this any longer as we will have a chance to come back to this on clause 17.

In answering my question about the contents of clause 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill the Minister made another interesting point. He has drawn attention to the hypothecation in that clause, with resources going back directly to the police, rather than to so-called safety camera partnerships. The point that we are making on our side is that the hypothecation in relation to the fines from safety cameras could be to police authorities or to highway authorities for reinvestment. It is not necessary for there to be a safety camera partnership in order for hypothecation to be secured. That the Government accept that is apparent from the fact that they introduced clause 132 without having to set up a new body to accommodate the receipts from the fine hypothecation process.

We discussed the contents of the handbook and so on. I do not disagree with the idea of giving road safety grants, and I am grateful to the Minister for giving us some of the information about the money coming from the cameras. Are those figures for the last financial year, ending last April? If not, what period is covered? Does the £120 million of fines reflects those actually paid or just those imposed? We know that many fines are imposed but never paid, so perhaps the Minister could clarify that. We are grateful for the indication that there is a surplus of £20 million. It could be better spent if it were invested in road safety measures.

Having identified the amendment as a probing one, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

This clause is widely drawn, and gives the Secretary of State massive unfettered powers. I am uneasy about its wording and seek reassurance from the Minister. The clause gives a national transport authority, which is

''the Secretary of State acting with the approval of the Treasury'',

which I presume he always does, the power to

''make payments to any local authority''—

I have no qualms about that—

''or any other authority or body for meeting the whole or part of the capital or running costs of any measures for promoting road safety.''

The Minister should explain what he has in mind, apart from the expected giving of grants to local authorities or perhaps safety camera partnerships.

I shall give an extreme example that would be allowed under the provision. The Wellingborough Labour party, perhaps despairing of the future, might decide in March, two months ahead of a general election, to launch a campaign, ''Be safe in Higham Ferrers.'' It might want every cyclist going through the constitutency to wear a bright, fluorescent jacket that states on the back, ''Paul Stinchcombe says, 'Be safe.''' Wellingborough Labour party is a body and it could say that its campaign was for road safety, so it seems that that would be allowed under the Bill.

Such an extreme example would not be acceptable to public opinion and the Minister would not venture that far. But there may be other marginal cases that might not upset public opinion but which most of here would consider unacceptable that the Minister could fund under the provision. Will he tell us what he has in mind and why he feels that it is in order for the Secretary of State to have that power to make such grants to any body or organisation for any measures so long as they relate to road safety?

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

This important clause gives important powers and we support it. However, I have two questions for the Minister.

First, I understand that the powers are already available in Scotland. Will the Minister confirm that the clause broadly mirrors the provision in Scotland, where it has worked well? Secondly, can he clarify why ''national transport authority'' means the

''Secretary of State acting with the approval of the Treasury''?

I understand from the helpful Library notes that no new money is attached to the proposal and that it is simply a more efficient and effective way of using existing resources. Is it normal to require the approval of the Treasury in each instance?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

If I may, I shall say just a few generic words about the clause and then deal with the points that have been raised by right hon. and hon. Members opposite.

As I said earlier, clause 1 extends the scope of section 40 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 for England and Wales. New section 40 makes it clear that the National Assembly for Wales or, for England, the Secretary of State may make payments to local authorities and other authorities and bodies to meet the whole or part of the capital or running costs of any measure for promoting road safety.

I assure the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross that the grants are available in Scotland. The 1988 Act has already been amended for Scotland by section 76 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001, which enables Scottish Ministers to make contributions towards the cost of measures undertaken by local authorities and other authorities to promote road safety. I am glad to hear his news from the north that that is working well in Scotland.

The power to provide funding will support innovation in road safety. The development of road safety policy is often best achieved by piloting at a local level, which allows specific complex problems to be addressed by local authorities through the development of bespoke packages of road safety measures on the ground. There is accelerated learning for authorities that take part, and others with similar problems can select measures that have been effective for use in their area. It is an efficient use of public resources.

Although we have been able to fund local authority schemes in the past, the available funding methods have not been ideal. The special grant procedure has proved cumbersome and is better suited to unusual, one-off expenditures. Local government powers are broad and may have limitations compared with a specific road safety grant power. For example, the Gloucester safer city project relied on the predecessor to the local transport plan funding arrangements for capital, and rate support grant for revenue, so finance was not directly related to the project.

The project was extremely successful as a pilot, and many of the other authorities in this country—and, in fact, from around the world—are looking at the work to provide safer measures that Gloucester did to find improvements that they can replicate in their area. Probably 80 or 90 per cent. of the measures taken in Gloucester were very successful, but some were not. We learn from doing innovative things, and sometimes something that is not successful is also helpful, as other authorities will not want to replicate something that does not work.

Another example is the Kerbcraft project, which teaches young children practical roadside skills. I have been able to observe some of the work that is done in schools, and it is excellent. The schools co-operate with the local authority in providing people to assist children to cross the road safely.

The neighbourhood road safety initiative, which I spoke about briefly in relation to Stoke-on-Trent, focuses specifically on the disadvantaged. We know that children who live in tight, urban areas, often in poorer communities, are about five times more likely to be injured or killed on the roads than those who live in the leafier suburbs. That is why we focused our funding on areas that had a high death rate for children on the roads. I gave some illustrations earlier of how the grant money had been used.The new power in clause 1 has the benefits of clarifying the scope for road safety projects, providing uncomplicated funding arrangements for local authorities and improving administrative arrangements.

A frisson ran through me when the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire spoke about diverting money from my Department to local Labour parties, specifically to the local party of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe). Attractive though that may seem to a Government, we come to the point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. I do not think that it would meet Treasury rules. That is why the provision is in the clause, so that we, or a successor Government of another party, which the hon. Member for Spelthorne, who has come back to join us, has predicted will happen in 180 days' time—

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

Eighty.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I thought he said 180. His powers of prediction are obviously better than mine. I do not know what will happen on 6 May. I am not privy to the inner workings of others.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

The Minister will probably be down at the jobcentre with us.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I was asked, quite properly, which other bodies could be funded. Often a number of other bodies co-operate with local authorities in providing road safety measures. A good example is that we, and successive Governments over the years, have provided money to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. That organisation has helped to pilot many projects and has given its hugely valuable expertise over a long time. I think that the Treasury is content that we should provide money to ROSPA, which is a structured organisation with a line of command; we know how the money will be spent and we know that the funds that it has received in the past have been spent to good effect.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

The Minister's words reassure me somewhat. Will he give an undertaking that, when the Bill becomes law, he will make a written statement to Parliament listing the other bodies or authorities that have received a grant under the clause?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

We do not want to restrict bodies in future that may be as good as ROSPA, but we could give more examples of where funding is being provided. In relation to the funding that my Department hands out, which mostly goes to local authorities, I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we take great care about where those valuable resources go. We have a limited amount of money. That is why we are extremely careful about to whom we give it and where it goes. As I said to one of my hon. Friends earlier, we also make sure that it is spent on the things that we want it spent on and not, attractive as it may sound, for some party-political end. That would not be in order.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 - Graduated fixed penalties

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I beg to move amendment No. 6, in clause 2, page 2, line 3, at end insert—

'(bb) the time of day it was committed.'.

Kevin Hughes (Labour, Doncaster North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 7, in clause 2, page 2, line 3, at end insert—

'(bb) the number of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users in the vicinity at the time,'.

No. 8, in clause 2, page 2, line 3, at end insert—

'(bb) the prevailing weather conditions,'.

No. 9, in clause 2, page 2, line 3, at end insert—

'(bb) the conditions of visibility,'.

No. 10, in clause 2, page 2, line 4, at end insert—

'(cc) whether the contravention resulted in a collision,'.

No. 11, in clause 2, page 2, line 7, at end insert—

'(dd) any mitigating circumstances put forward by the offender,'.

No. 16, in clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—

'(bb) the time of day it was committed,'.

No. 17, in clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—

'(bb) the number of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users in the vicinity at the time,'.

No. 18, in clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—

'(bb) the prevailing weather conditions,'.

No. 19, in clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—

'(bb) the conditions of visibility,'.

No. 20, in clause 3, page 2, line 38, at end insert—

'(cc) whether the contravention resulted in a collision,'.

No. 21, in clause 3, page 2, line 41, at end insert—

'(dd) any mitigating circumstances put forward by the offender.'.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The helpful briefing that the Minister and his officials provided to some of us yesterday explains that the clause relates particularly to the new power in clause 4 that enables vehicle examiners to give fixed penalty notices. However, the wording of the clause is not restricted, which gives us the chance to question the Government on their thinking behind the choice of criteria in paragraphs (a) to (d).

The amendments that I have tabled give some alternative and additional criteria. Amendment No. 6 would add the time of day when an offence is committed, which can often be a highly relevant factor. Amendment No. 7 would add

''the number of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users in the vicinity at the time'',

which again is a highly relevant factor. Much of the correspondence that we have received from road safety campaigners in the run-up to the debate on the Bill in Committee has emphasised their concern about vulnerable road users, and pedestrians and speeding vehicles. If we accept that concern, which I share, and that priority, the other side of the coin is that when no pedestrians or other vulnerable road users are in the vicinity at the time, the offence might be regarded as less serious.

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

I have listened with interest to the hon. Gentleman. He makes some interesting and valid points and has just mentioned the factors that might make an offence more or less serious. He will see from subsection (2)(b) that one factor of which account must be taken is how serious the offence is. Are the issues raised by his amendment not already in the clause?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but I do not believe that the words ''how serious it is'' in paragraph (b) are sufficiently precise. Who will judge that? How will the judgment be made? What criteria will apply? I believe that something specific about, say, the number of vulnerable road users and pedestrians in the vicinity at the time would be relevant to assessing the gravity of the offence, but that is not spelt out in the clause. Why should we as Parliament not take this opportunity to spell it out?

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

The difficulty about spelling things out is that what is not spelt out is then necessarily excluded, whereas putting a word such as ''serious'' into the Bill gives the decision-maker discretion to consider all the facts and any given circumstance and come to his own judgment.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I do not ask that my amendments should be at the expense of leaving ''how serious it is'' out of paragraph (b). I ask that additional factors should be taken into account. It is the essence of a mature democracy that discretion should be exercised, instead of there being absolutism. The fixed penalty regime has proved convenient for administrators and enforcers and, on occasion, for the perpetrators of offences; not least, as the Minister will know, because it normally means that they can perpetrate the offence without any risk of publicity. Before such offences were dealt with under the fixed penalty system, a Member of Parliament—dare one think of such a possibility?—who offended against a speed limit in his constituency shortly after having campaigned on road safety issues would risk publicity. If he or she were to offend against a speed limit now, there is a chance that they might be able to avoid publicity. It is rather like ticking the box on the old pools coupon; people can avoid publicity by going for a fixed penalty. I am not suggesting that a fixed penalty scheme is wholly one-sided, but it has resulted in hard cases. I would welcome more flexibility.

To take a hypothetical example, if a person taking a sick child in their car to hospital in an emergency goes too fast past a speed camera and is detected, at present there is no scope for being able to reduce the fixed penalty notice imposed. That is not something that we should tolerate in a mature democracy, where we have the ability to exercise our discretion. I give that as an example of the sort of circumstance that might occur. The other relevant criteria are the conditions of visibility and whether the contravention resulted in a collision. It is difficult to legislate for a penalty system based on the outcome of behaviour, but there is increasing demand among the public to link penalties to the consequences of people's actions.

Mr. Stinchcombe indicated assent.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees.

Amendment No. 11 refers to

''any mitigating circumstances put forward by the offender''.

That is not in the existing criteria in the Bill.

Intriguingly, paragraph (d) refers to whether

''the offender appears to have committed any offence or offences of a description specified in the order during a period so specified.''

I am not sure how that will be ascertained when the offence is committed. I would have thought that a defence of mitigating circumstances should be available.

I had some constituency correspondence recently about a gentleman who went past a speed camera in Bournemouth three or four times in an area where the speed limit had recently changed. He was caught by surprise and only on the third occasion did he realise that he had been caught on camera because the offences took place within 24 or 36 hours. The form that was sent to him stated that if he had mitigating circumstances, he could have a hearing in court. He thought that he had mitigating circumstances and went to court, but was told that it was a complete waste of time because the court had no discretion and had to impose the three points on his licence.

I then wrote to the Court Service saying that there must be something wrong with the standard form because it specifically invites offenders to go to court if they have mitigating circumstances. When they get there, they find that it meant that they could go to court if there were exacerbating circumstances for a penalty higher than the minimum, but that the court has no discretion to award a penalty lower than the minimum. He was fortunate that the court was understanding and did not penalise him further with an order for costs.

I hope that the Minister will consider that issue because, at the moment, the standard form refers to mitigating circumstances. But if someone takes that at face value and goes to court, they find that the court has no scope to exercise the discretion that it should have in a civilised society.

It will not have escaped the notice of the Committee that amendments Nos. 16 to 21 refer to the equivalent provisions in clause 3. It is obviously convenient to deal with that in one debate because, essentially, the same issues arise. As with so many amendments, they provide an opportunity for the Minister to explain exactly what he has in mind; whether the criteria in clause 2 were designed to deal with the sort of offences referred to in clauses 4 and 5, or whether they were intended to be more wide ranging, and why those examples of mitigating circumstances were chosen rather than the ones I set out in the amendments.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

My hon. Friend is a powerful advocate, but on this occasion he has not entirely convinced me of the necessity of the amendments, although it seemed to me when we discussed tabling them that the Committee should debate the issue. I think that the Committee is led back to the intervention of the hon. Member for Wellingborough. If one goes through the amendments—it is fair that we ask the Minister to respond to them on the record—and considers the case of someone falling foul of the law at 6 am on a sunny morning with no vehicle, pedestrian or possible collision in sight, one could conclude that the offence was not a serious one. That is contained in the Bill.

So I am with my hon. Friend as far as saying that we want the Minister to confirm that all the circumstances in the amendments are covered by his wording. Does he agree that that is the position?

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

How could the idea of mitigating circumstances possibly be subsumed in the existing clause? The clause is concerned with fixed penalties.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I am confining my remarks to amendments Nos. 6 to 10. I have not come on to amendment No. 11. My points are correct for amendments Nos. 6 to 10.

The danger in seeking to include a list in a Bill is that it may not be comprehensive. Someone may find an example that is not included in the list and say that it should not be taken into account. That was another point that the hon. Member for Wellingborough made. For example, what is the status of the road? Is it a motorway, which is clearly built to cater for vehicles travelling at about 70 mph, or is it a country B road with twists and turns, for which a much lower speed would be safe? There is a problem in trying to tag a list on to the Bill, but I would be reassured if the Minister confirmed that he envisaged that all of the circumstances contained in the amendments will be covered by the Bill.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

My right hon. Friend said that one could conclude that the offence was not serious. It is certainly true that someone might conclude that it was not serious, but someone else might conclude that the circumstances that he described were serious. Many absolutists believe that any infringement of a speed limit is serious and should not be the subject of mitigation.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

Based on what I have heard the hon. Member for Stafford say on previous occasions, he would take such a position. I think that anyone viewing an offence would take such matters into account, but I want the Minister to confirm that that is also his understanding.

On amendment No. 11, it is important that there is some recognition that there may be mitigating circumstances of which the police officer was not aware that should be taken into account when he is appraised of the circumstances. It is right and proper to put that in the Bill.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I apologise for missing the beginning of the debate and hope that I do not cover ground that was covered in my absence. There is a prison in my constituency that regularly causes me immediate grief, which is what happened a moment ago.

I received a phone call from the local accident and emergency department 23 years ago, telling me that my 12-year-old daughter had been admitted and was seriously ill. I did what any parent would do; leapt into my car and drove the 14 miles from home to Bath as fast as I could. Sadly, I got there too late, but that is a separate issue. Reflecting on the incident, I have little doubt that I did not drive well. Although I cannot remember, I am fairly certain that I broke assorted speed limits. In the circumstances, I could have broken the law, done something very stupid and killed somebody. I would not consider that I had any justification for behaving like that, despite the fact that I was distressed.

On the other hand, had I just happened to be doing 40 mph in a 30 mph area, with nobody about, when the visibility was good, I could reasonably have argued that perhaps in the circumstances most people would have behaved like that and I did no harm to anybody.

As I understand the law—listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch—I would have had no justification for saying, ''Look, hang on a minute. For other reasons, I have got x penalty points on my licence and this one will do for me. It will get me disqualified.'' There are individual cases where mitigating circumstances ought to be considered and will do no harm to the public, and where that will not set a precedent. God forbid that anyone has to use what I could have used as a mitigating circumstance on that occasion.

Even if the Minister says that there is no need for that or that it would be better done some other way, perhaps the Hansard report of this Committee would be a sufficient indication to magistrates, the police or whoever else has to deal with this matter. Progress could be made in that direction. I would be grateful to hear what the Minister has to say. I am not saying that amendment No. 11 will automatically do the trick, but I support its spirit for the reasons that I have given. I look forward to the Minister's comments.

On the other issues, I am not a lawyer and I often puzzle over the way lawyers talk about these things. I heard the hon. Member for Wellingborough say that because the provision mentions ''how serious it is'' there is no need for the list that we want to include. I can follow that argument until I look at paragraph (c), which states:

''the area, or sort of place''.

If the lawyer's argument is that ''how serious'' covers everything, why is there then a list? If the Government feel it necessary to specify in paragraph (c), which begins the list, where an offence takes place, what is wrong with saying when it takes place?

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

The hon. Gentleman is making a good point. However, there is some structure to the clause. It mentions the nature of the offence, its gravity, its location and the form of the offender.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

Yes, but the time of day is one of the most relevant things. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. The location and type of offence are included. However, at the risk of opening myself to prosecution, I will admit that on motorways very late at night, in good weather, I have driven slightly in excess of 70 mph. I would argue that when the motorway is empty at 2 o'clock in the morning and I am minding my own business and breaking the speed limit, that is an entirely different offence from going down the fast lane—I appreciate that we are not supposed to call it that—in the rush hour at 85 or 90 mph. Doing 85 or 90 mph on a motorway can be more serious than doing 110 mph; I hasten to add that my car will not do 110.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

How do you know?

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

It might just; going downhill, with the wind behind it. We will not go into that. I shall dig an even bigger trench for myself before I know where I am. I assume that previous endorsements are not relevant declarable interests as far as the Committee is concerned. Or perhaps we all ought to queue up and confess to you, Mr. Hughes.

I will not speak about the other things on the list. I understand the points that have been made. However, if we are going to list where an offence takes place, perhaps we ought also to say when it takes place.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Christchurch, who tabled amendments Nos. 6 to 11. I shall ask the Committee to resist them because the conditions that they deal with are adequately covered in the clause.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough kindly did part of my job for me by pointing out that specifying factors in the Bill could exclude other factors unless the list was totally exhaustive. The danger in being too specific is that we may appear to rule out other circumstances, rather than having some clearly ruled in by those set out in paragraphs (a) to (d). Paragraph (b) deals with most of the issues that the hon. Member for Christchurch was talking about; the question of the seriousness of the offence. That covers a wide range of different activities that a person may have undertaken.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I am pretty much with the Minister when he says that it is better to have broad headings that narrow definitions, but will he explain why he suggests that the Committee should reject amendments Nos. 11 and 21?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I shall come to that. The right hon. Gentleman has helped me with a little bit of a mystery that I was considering in the past couple of days; the reason why some of the amendments had attached the names of three Opposition Members, while some had only one. It is clear that the right hon. Gentleman disagrees with the hon. Member for Christchurch on some of the amendments, which is why he spoke against them. I thought that he was doing my job for me at one stage as well; I am looking for aid and assistance from all quarters during the proceedings.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I was interested in what the Minister said. He might like to reflect that, unless I am a bit slow on the uptake, on the only occasions when there are two signatories to our amendments, it is my name that is left out and not that of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I thought, Mr. Hughes, that I heard you mutter under your breath, ''Put the spade down'' at one stage, and the hon. Gentleman seems to be digging himself a little further into the various trenches he described during his previous contribution.

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

I accept the Minister's general point that to prescribe closely creates more problems than it solves, but does he accept the general thrust of what the hon. Member for Spelthorne said about timing? For instance, an offence committed outside a school at two o'clock in the morning is very different from one committed during school hours, particularly as schoolchildren are coming out. Is he confident that that will be accepted and understood when the Bill becomes law?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I totally accept what my hon. Friend says, and the general thrust of what the hon. Member for Christchurch said. That is why I pointed out paragraphs (b) and (c), which deal with the seriousness of the offence, and the area or sort of place where it occurs. That would clearly suggest to me that a school at times when children are coming out or going in was more risky a place than it would at three in the morning. The generic specification in those paragraphs more than adequately covers the issues raised.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister talks about how the seriousness of the offence is covered by all amendments. Does he believe that the question of seriousness includes the consequences of what happens? Those consequences may be a collision or injuries resulting from that.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

Yes, that is covered because the seriousness of the event would also include any injuries, whether it was a minor scrape or whether it inflicted a number of deaths. That is what the term ''serious incident'' suggests to me.

The clause amends section 53 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, which will enable the Secretary of State to prescribe by order—

It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock. The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Standing Committee A

Clause 2

Peter Pike (Labour, Burnley)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following amendments: No. 7, in clause 2, page 2, line 3, at end insert—

'(bb) number of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users in the vicinity at the time,'.

No. 8, in clause 2, page 2, line 3, at end insert—

'(bb) the prevailing weather conditions,'.

No. 9, in clause 2, page 2, line 3, at end insert—

'(bb) the conditions of visibility,'.

No. 10, in clause 2, page 2, line 4, at end insert—

'(cc) whether the contravention resulted in a collision,'.

No. 11, in clause 2, page 2, line 7, at end insert—

'(dd) any mitigating circumstances put forward by the offender,'.

No. 16, in clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—

'(bb) the time of day it was committed,'.

No. 17, in clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—

'(bb) the number of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users in the vicinity at the time,'.

No. 18, in clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—

'(bb) the prevailing weather conditions,'.

No. 19, in clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—

'(bb) the conditions of visibility,'.

No. 20, in clause 3, page 2, line 38, at end insert—

'(cc) whether the contravention resulted in a collision,'.

No. 21, in clause 3, page 2, line 41, at end insert—

'(dd) any mitigating circumstances put forward by the offender.'.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

May I start, Mr. Pike, by saying how delighted I am that you are in the Chair and that you will preside over our proceedings in the firm but fair way you always chair our proceedings? In your absence this morning, Mr. Hughes was extremely good on his first outing and I shall convey that information to him at the earliest opportunity.

You will be surprised to hear, Mr. Pike, that during our debate this morning on clause 1 and grants to local authorities, there was a considerable discussion about speed safety cameras. There was also a discussion about the handbook of rules and guidance on safety cameras. This Government always keep their promises and this Minister always ensures that promises are kept. The document is now available for those who want a copy for some light bedtime reading or who like reading such things. It has been available for some time in the Library, but we have brought some copies Upstairs.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

As I was the one who suggested that that might happen, it would be unfair if I did not thank the Minister, which gives me the opportunity to ask him about the Government's promise at the last election not to increase taxes.

Peter Pike (Labour, Burnley)

Order. The Minister should not be tempted to go astray.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

Mr. Pike, I will not be drawn on that, lest we do further damage to the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) and his party.

Just before the Committee adjourned this morning, when I was rudely interrupted, I was saying that clause 2 amends section 53 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 to enable the Secretary of State by order to prescribe graduated penalties. The amount may vary, depending on the circumstances of the offence, which include, in particular, the nature of the offence, its severity, where it took place and whether the offender had committed other prescribed offences during a prescribed period. However, that is not an exclusive list of circumstances.

The measure provides wide scope to take account of key factors such as whether the offence was near a school. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) referred to collisions, which are covered by new subsection (2)(2)(b). Meteorological conditions and the presence of a particular number of vulnerable road users are harder to codify; in the latter case, I would be disinclined to try to formulate too complex a structure of penalties that took account of factors such as how many pedestrians were on the pavement or the road at a particular time.

Clause 3 amends section 28 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 so as to enable the Secretary of State by order to prescribe appropriate levels of penalty points in the case of a fixed penalty. The number of points may vary, depending on the circumstances of the offence. Amendments Nos. 16 to 21, which we will discuss under clause 2 although they apply to clause 3, would have an effect similar to amendments Nos. 6 to 11, which apply to clause 2. They are subject to the same difficulties and the Government cannot accept them.

I had not covered a couple of points, one of which was raised by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) who, sadly, is not in his place. He asked about amendment No. 21 and any mitigating circumstances. It would be absurd if someone could start arguing about mitigating circumstances at the side of the road and a police officer had to take those circumstances into consideration. The police officer makes a judgment, but he cannot then hold a court at the side of the road. If someone wants to contest a judgment, they can go before the courts to seek redress.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification, which gives me a better understanding of the situation, but it does not put my mind at rest about the circumstances that I raised with him. A court might say, ''We accept the mitigation. It is justified and we therefore reduce the fine to zero'', indicating that it had every sympathy; yet the law does not allow it to say, ''We will not apply points.'' The person would then be disqualified, although the court felt that they should not be penalised. Is the Minister prepared to re-examine that point? Even if this is not the right place or the right Bill for that purpose, I think it should still be considered.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I was about to come to that point, as the hon. Gentleman had raised the issue.

I am afraid that that has always been the case; the Bill does not change it. The magistrates can choose to operate at another level. I am told that if somebody came before the court with a fixed penalty, the court could, having heard some evidence, in certain circumstances decide to dismiss the case—in other words, effectively find the person not guilty. If that were the case, no penalty would be incurred. I am not a lawyer, but, as I understand it, that course of action is at the court's disposal.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

Again, that is helpful, but does the Minister accept that there could be circumstances of the sort I suggested, in which the last thing anybody would consider when this thing tumbled through the letter box was going to see a lawyer about something which, at the time, they would see as a trivial matter? They could easily plead guilty, not knowing that by pleading not guilty there would be an opportunity not to have the points put on their licence. Again, what the Minister said is helpful, but it does not overcome the problem.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

The same would apply to anybody who committed any offence in any shape or form. If one felt aggrieved, one would take advice. Then, if it was appropriate, one would go to the court. However, that applies not just to motoring offences or tickets but to virtually every offence.

I hope that that brings the hon. Gentleman some comfort. There would have to be special circumstances. One could not simply say, ''Oh, I didn't see the sign'' or ''I hadn't realised that the speed limit had changed'', when manifestly the limiter signs were in place.

There is one defence that people have used to have a ticket overturned. The hon. Member for Christchurch gave an example whereby a speed limit had been changed on a road. If somebody could demonstrate to the court that the road had not been sufficiently signed within the law, that would be a strong defence in the court. The case could then be dismissed and the ticket thrown out. However, somebody would have to demonstrate that, and I believe that, on occasions, they have. Certainly in the 30mph zone, people have sometimes shown that the legal designation of the limit had not been met and got their tickets overturned. There are probably not many occasions when that is possible. The risk is that unless one's evidence is very good, one may go to the court and find, as many people do, that the fixed penalty tends to be the lowest penalty that can be given and one leaves the court with a higher penalty, but that is the hazard of going to court.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

Of course it is possible to start arguing about technicalities, but if someone wants to cite mitigating circumstances I suspect the last thing on their mind will be playing the barrack-room lawyer and trying to trip up the system. A mitigating circumstance is a personal circumstance that overtakes a person. It is all very well to suggest that they could, if they knew it, take advice or argue whether the signs were in the right place, but I doubt whether that is what would be on their minds at the time.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Christchurch used the example of someone taking a person to hospital or rushing to a member of the family who was in hospital. It is understandable that if a driver wants to help a loved one or get to them rapidly in such circumstances, his mind may leave consideration of the road for a time. That is understandable; it is human and it could happen to us all. I have taken people to hospital on a few occasions. Once it was someone who was badly injured and losing a lot of blood, and it struck me that if I was going too fast I might occasion a further accident, which would increase the need for the person to get to hospital and decrease my ability to get them there.

It is difficult, in the cold light of day, to weigh up such things in an emergency. In the example given by the hon. Member for Spelthorne, if a person is rushing to visit someone in hospital, or is in an emergency situation or rushing to a catastrophe at home, I believe that the driver would almost certainly plead guilty or be found guilty of the offence, which would give the court no discretion about issuing penalty points. However, the magistrate may then say, ''Given what you have gone through and the fact that you have penalty points, I think you have suffered enough.'' He may decide not to inflict further penalty. That is my understanding of the operation of the law. I hope that that is helpful.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister will recall that when we were debating the Traffic Management Act 2004, we dealt with the rigidities in the fixed penalty system and the representations made by adjudication officers that local authorities—effectively, they are the equivalent of the prosecuting authority in the cases that we are discussing now—should have the chance to review the circumstances and decide whether they wish to proceed.

What the Minister said makes it clear that the prosecuting authority has no discretion. It receives the letter of explanation from the person who has had the fixed penalty notice setting out the mitigating circumstances, but if there had been a police officer at the scene he would probably have exercised his discretion and said, ''I am not going to prosecute in these circumstances.'' We are arguing for a similar sort of discretion for the prosecuting authorities, to prevent a prosecution from proceeding.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

The difference is that the people issuing the tickets in the circumstances mentioned by the hon. Gentleman would largely be civilian traffic wardens. We are now talking about police officers, who are trained to a much higher level of competence—I do not mean that the others are not competent, but that the police officers operate under a different system and have a higher level of training. The person still has the safeguard of going to court, but most of the offences that the hon. Gentleman refers to would not attract penalty points. They would be parking offences, which do not attract penalty points on the licence, and there is the procedure whereby one can go back to the local authority and then, if necessary, to the adjudicator. In this case, however, once the police officer has made his judgment, it can be challenged in court.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I accept that is what happens if a police officer is present who makes a judgment on the situation, but I am describing what happens if the penalty is triggered by a machine—a safety camera—which cannot understand the circumstances involved. Surely, if the penalty is triggered by a machine, it should be possible to introduce a human element into the process so that discretion can be exercised and a prosecution not proceeded with.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

If the hon. Gentleman has not already done so, I suggest that he visits his local safety camera partnership to see how it operates when it receives the film. Having seen that myself, I know that the person who looks at the film is highly trained. They must determine whether the equipment shows that someone was speeding and must look into other circumstances, such as the proximity of other vehicles. When there is close proximity of two vehicles, there may be confusion as to which vehicle triggered the light and I understand that there can be issues of the beam bouncing from one vehicle to another. The person who looks at the film uses discretion to ensure that cases are clear-cut when the penalty notices are sent out. When I visited the safety camera partnership, a large number of cases—about 20 per cent. at a guess—were thrown out because the operator decided that they were not satisfied that the matter could not be challenged if the recipient of the penalty notice took the matter to court and the film was shown to the magistrates.

On the other side in the Department, someone told us that he had been unfairly dealt with and we suggested that he send for the film. The guy sent the film to me and said it was disgraceful that he had been prosecuted, but it seemed to me that he had been travelling faster than indicated on his ticket. He claimed that a car nearby had set off the camera, but there was manifestly no other car in the photograph. The photographic evidence is available to the person who is accused of offending and could show that there was doubt, but it often puts the case beyond doubt. If someone feels that there is doubt, they can go to court and if the court feels that the evidence in front of it is not good enough, the magistrates or the judge can call the proceedings to an end.

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

Will my hon. Friend clarify one matter? My father was once the recipient of a fixed penalty notice after he was caught on camera speeding when taking my son to hospital with a fractured skull. Is it not the case that even in such circumstances, there is always discretion as to whether to continue a prosecution?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I think that was the point I was making. If someone is caught on camera and receives a fixed penalty fine, they would have to challenge it in court and hope to plead mitigation. On the one hand, they may want to try to prove that they were not driving above the speed limit and if they could demonstrate that in court, the case would be dismissed. If they pleaded guilty and said that they were speeding but that mitigating circumstances led them to do so, the court could reduce the financial penalty, but, as I understand it, there is no leeway within the law for it to reduce the penalty points on the licence.

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

I fully understand the Minister's argument about a case that gets to court. I am asking whether there is an intermediary stage whereby someone might persuade the prosecuting authorities to withdraw a fixed penalty notice, or whether, once it has been issued, it is inexorable that it goes to court or leads to acceptance of a fixed penalty.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

If that exists, it is not known to me and I do not believe that there is any other intermediary stage. I know that some people have written to safety camera partnerships. If a partnership felt that a mistake had been made by one of its operators, it may have some discretion. If my hon. Friend wants more information, we can probe the matter in a little more depth, but I am not sure that it is wholly relevant to the clause.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister is very generous in giving way. If there is no leeway at the moment, should there not be some? The Minister said that there is no leeway under the law, but we have the opportunity in this Committee to change the law so that there is leeway and so that discretion can be introduced in circumstances such as those described by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe).

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

What I am trying to say is that there is a fairly high degree of discretion. The operator in the police station or in a place attached to a police station who looks at the film uses a fairly high degree of discretion. I cannot comment on every operator but, from what I saw, I would say that operators erred very much on the side of doubt. I dare say that one or two people who had speeded excessively got away with it because there was a tiny element of doubt and the operator was not prepared to accept that the driver might go to court and be found not guilty. There is some discretion already within the system.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I am aware that I took the Committee on this scenic byway instead of staying with the main principle of the clause. The Minister will have realised that I feel strongly about the matter. I readily accept that I am not a lawyer, but I am hearing things that lead me to believe that an informed and researched debate on the subject—I am not criticising the Minister in any way—might help to clear the air one way or the other. Perhaps I could table an amendment on Report to seek to build in some discretion. The Minister and the rest of us would by then have had a chance to do some research and perhaps we could usefully pursue the matter at that point.

Peter Pike (Labour, Burnley)

Before I call the Minister, may I say that I accept that some important issues have arisen, but that we must not go down too many scenic byways because we want to make progress?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

If the hon. Member for Spelthorne wants to go down a scenic byway, it is totally in his gift to do so on Report; or the matter could be the topic of a half-day Opposition day or even an Adjournment debate. I would be delighted to respond to a debate and to unravel the matter in as much detail as the hon. Gentleman felt appropriate. I am perfectly happy to mull over the matter.

This has been a useful and interesting debate in unravelling some of the issues that we have covered, but the amendments would not be helpful; in fact, I think they would be a hindrance to the proper operation of the law. Reluctantly, I ask the Committee to reject them.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Mr. Pike, I, too, welcome you to the Chair. It is a great pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship.

The Minister has addressed some of our concerns, but this interesting debate has highlighted a lacuna in the law, which hon. Members on both sides of the Committee would like addressed. It is the issue of someone who has personal mitigating circumstances which resulted in their speeding and being detected by a speed camera. Such personal mitigating circumstances would not be known by the operative who looked at the film—the operative would not know, for example, that there was a sick child in the back of the car who was being taken to hospital.

When we were discussing a similar issue in relation to the Traffic Management Act 2004 and the rigidity associated with, for example, moving traffic offences in box junctions and bus lanes, the then Minister was very accommodating in saying that a code of practice should operate to enable people who felt that a camera did not tell the whole story and who wanted to make written representations to the authorities to do so, thus giving the authorities the opportunity to say that in the circumstances they would not prosecute. Unfortunately, under the fixed penalty regime under clause 2, there is no equivalent discretion available to the authorities to enable them on receipt of representations from a motorist to decide that they will not prosecute. All that can happen is that the matter goes to court if the recipient of the fixed penalty notice looks at what I described earlier as a rather misleading form which says that if there are mitigating circumstances, the recipient should go to court. However, by the time they get to court, it becomes apparent that the court does not have any discretion to give the equivalent of an absolute or conditional discharge, which would be available in all other criminal proceedings.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

The hon. Gentleman describes a lacuna, but he is extending it beyond where it would go in law. If I remember my law correctly—admittedly, I last practised eight years ago—there is a court procedure allowing people to show special reason why their licence should not be endorsed, or why they should not be disqualified when they would otherwise lose their licence—for example, in totting. That is one procedure, but I would not want the hon. Gentleman to extend the lacuna beyond that.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

It is many years since I looked at ''Wilkinson's Road Traffic Offences'', the bible on such matters. It is true that special reasons can be dealt with in some circumstances, but that does not cover the situation described by the hon. Member for Wellingborough or by my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne. I should have thought that, with the legal expertise of hon. Members and of those who are following our proceedings, it might be possible to address the problem.

It may not be as strong a case as that of someone taking their child to hospital in an emergency, but I heard of a case the other day in which a temporary traffic sign indicating that the speed limit had been reduced from the standard 50 mph in an urban area to 30 mph because of road words had been knocked down.

The gentleman concerned said that although it was at night and the works were not in progress, the temporary speed limit sign had been knocked over. He wrote to the police saying that the sign had been knocked over and sending a photograph of it that he had taken the following morning when he went back to check. Notwithstanding that, he was told that there was no discretion because he had no defence. It was an absolute offence. He was driving at a speed in excess of the prevailing 30 mph limit. The fact that the sign was knocked down was no defence.

That is another example of what I would describe as special circumstances, although I accept that they may not be special reasons; but common sense dictates that the authorities should have exercised discretion. The authorities failed to use discretion in that case. The gentleman is now faced with two options—paying up, under protest, or taking his case to court in the knowledge that he has no defence but only mitigation, and the prospect that if he goes to court the fine may be larger than if he had settled for a fixed penalty. That is one issue that has been highlighted in our debate.

I am grateful to the Minister for explaining in a little more detail how the criteria set out in clause 2 will be applied. I am still not clear how the clause will work in practice; perhaps we can briefly touch on that aspect during the clause stand part debate. It is far from clear how people are to find out what the graduated fixed penalties will be, and what time scale is set for their introduction.

I have given notice to the Minister of those questions that will arise on clause stand part. In the meantime, I invite everyone who reads the report of our debate, and those who have participated in it, to put on their thinking caps to see whether a way can be found—we could bring it forward later in the proceedings—to mitigate the full penalties in the special circumstances that we have outlined. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I have said that I would be interested to hear from the Minister what he has to say about the time scale for implementation and what it will mean in practice—whether the orders will be brought forward quickly, how much detail they will contain and so on.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

Before I come to that, I want to outline what the clause will do. Clause 2 amends the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 so that amounts of fixed penalties prescribed by order under section 53 can be graduated. The graduations would depend on the nature of the infringement and its severity, whether other prescribed offences have been committed during a prescribed period and where the offence took place.

We should remember that the clause does not create new offences. The hon. Member for Christchurch asked how people would know about the offences, but the offences remain unchanged. People can find out about them by reading the Highway Code, or even by breaking the law and being fined. We make it clear in the discussion document that before we go any further—this applies also to clause 3—there will be consultation. Following that, an order will have to be laid before the House, with another period before implementation. People will find out about the law in the usual way, and, when appropriate, revisions will doubtless receive attention in the newspapers and motoring magazines. However, it is obviously up to the motorist to be aware of the penalties that can be attracted by the various infringements of the law.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Perhaps I can ask the Minister to give examples. As a result of having a wide range of penalties, when someone triggers a speed camera, they will receive a fixed penalty notice that is not for the minimum in the available range but is rather higher. The view is taken that it is a serious offence and/or that the offender appears to have committed a previous offence.

How will the offender know whether that higher range fixed penalty is the appropriate penalty? Will he have the opportunity to make representations about it? Will case law apply? Could he be referred to any practice guidance? Or, bearing in mind that each prosecuting authority is distinct, will he be operating completely in the dark? It would help if the Minister could explain how it will work, perhaps by way of example.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

As somebody who has not received too many such notices—in fact, I have not had one—[Interruption.] It is dangerous to say these things, and we can all transgress.

I have seen a notice, and I know that information is given with it showing the penalties. The notice also refers to the relevant Act. If someone felt that the information was not right, they could go to the library or seek legal advice to find out whether it was correct. They would have to trust what was on the notice, seek redress in the courts or take further consultation on the matter.

Before thresholds are changed for the financial penalty or for the number of points on the licence, another process has to be gone through. As I will say when we come to clause 3, the provision merely gives the ability to vary the fines for those offences. It does not set out what the fines will be or how many points would apply to an offence.

Andy Reed (Labour/Co-operative, Loughborough)

As those orders come forward, I am worried that we will end up with inconsistencies across the country in the interpretation of what is serious and so on. Will the Minister explain how we can achieve consistency? As we have heard, the postcode lottery affects many other issues, and I would hate different interpretations to apply in different regions or counties. Will the Minister explain how to overcome that?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

As my hon. Friend will see when we deal with the amendments to clause 3, our discussion document on speeding set a framework in which there could be no discretion—a person would be charged depending on the various elements. That was discussed and, if this becomes law, there will be further consultation. That is an example of a case in which, once a matter has been through consultation and discussed in Committees of the House, there is unlikely to be discretion. However, in other cases, police officers enforcing the law will, as they do now, take the circumstances into account and make a judgment.

When a police officer at the side of the road pulls somebody up, he makes a judgment as to the severity of the offence—for instance, driving at 40 mph in a 30 mph zone might on some occasions not appear to be dangerous, whereas on other occasions, in a busy high street, with children crossing the road, it can be utterly outrageous. One could argue that at 3 o'clock in the morning, that there is still a danger—partly because more crashes happen at night than during the day—but that it is less dangerous. It is for police officers to make that judgment, just as they do now on almost all offences.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am still slightly perplexed. The next clause deals only with speeding offences.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

May I help the hon. Gentleman? No it does not; clause 3 applies to all the offences and clause 2, which we are dealing with now, refers to the financial penalty. Clause 3 refers to the penalty points.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am sorry; I stand corrected. This deals with the financial penalty and we have heard that, for example, somebody could be speeding at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, when there is hardly anybody about, compared with somebody driving at the same excessive speed but in more dangerous circumstances. The graduated penalties set out not only the penalty points, which will be dealt with in clause 3, but the fines. If the clause means anything, it surely means that somebody who, say, drives at 94 mph in conditions in which there is a lot of traffic will face a higher financial penalty than somebody who drives at 94 mph in the middle of the night. If that is not so, does that mean that the Minister does not take into account any of the criteria set out in (a) to (d) in relation to the speed at which a vehicle is travelling?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

Perhaps there is a slight confusion here. It might be my fault for not having explained the position with sufficient clarity. The criteria that we have in clause 2(2)(a) to (d) would be those used to fix the penalties for certain offences. The same would be the case in clause 3 for fixing the penalty points. Almost certainly, those will have to come back before the House for consideration in relation to secondary legislation, in which the criteria would be used to formulate the fine levels for certain offences.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would accept that if one tried to introduce, as he does in his amendment, different times of day and night for the enforcement of, say, camera-operated speed limits, that would create almighty confusion. It would be almost unenforceable. The criteria would not apply to such offences. They would apply to the formulation of the penalty but not, once it was fixed, to the penalty itself. Once the criteria are fixed, the discretion goes out of the window.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am sure that it has nothing to do with the Minister's ability to explain things. It is my fault that I cannot understand things. Therefore, I am grateful to him for that further explanation.

Question agreed to.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 - Graduated fixed penalty points

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I beg to move amendment No. 12, in clause 3, page 2, line 28, leave out from 'as' to end of line 41 and insert

'set out in Schedule [Graduated Penalties]'.

Peter Pike (Labour, Burnley)

With this it will be convenient to discuss new schedule 1—Graduated Penalties—

Lower penalty points 2 points and £40 fineStandard penalty 3 points and £60 fine Higher penalty 6 points and £100 fine Speed (mph) Speed (mph) Speed (mph) Speed (mph) 20 No lower penalty Up to and including 31 32 30 3940-44 45 40 50 51-56 57 50 61 62-69 70 60 72 73-81 82 70 83 84-93 94

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

: The amendment introduces a new schedule, which would put into the Bill the graduated penalties that would apply to speeding. I tabled the amendment because I believe that the Secretary of State accepted on Second Reading—it is apparent from the contributions to that debate and the wider debate outside—that this is a highly controversial subject. There are many different and sincerely held views. As we have a chance to consider primary legislation, we should debate, and put into the Bill, what we collectively, as parliamentarians, think is the right answer to what the graduated penalties should be for speeding.

The Government line is ''We know that, in our party, the Secretary of State takes one view, a number of his Back Benchers who spoke on Second Reading take another and outside interests take a third. We will sort it all out after we have had a little more consultation and we will introduce a statutory instrument that cannot be amended.'' I take the view that, if Parliament is to be taken seriously, we should collectively take responsibility for this issue ourselves, as Members of Parliament and particularly as members of the Committee. We have the chance to do that. Therefore, I have had a stab at putting down what I regard, and what the Minister and I think the Secretary of State regard, as the appropriate answer to this conundrum.

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

Is it the hon. Gentleman's case that the Bill should contain a provision that reduces the penalty points for speeding between 30 mph and 39 mph, even though all the evidence indicates that that would lead to road deaths?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am adopting exactly the same line as the Secretary of State adopted on Second Reading, and I do not doubt his sincerity. Certainly my view, subject to any arguments put forward in the Committee, is that the Government have started along the right lines. However, by tabling the schedule and the amendment, I wanted to start a debate around graduated penalties and seek agreement from members of the Committee, after proper discussion, that it is desirable that such penalties should be included in the Bill instead of being deferred to some stage in the future when we will not have a chance to amend the secondary legislation.

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman's case is not the same as the Secretary of State's, who is simply saying that there should be an enabling provision and then consultation and consideration before the set of penalties is established. The hon. Gentleman's position is rather different: he believes that we should enact legislation now that would reduce the penalties for speeding below 40 mph, even though many children would be killed by such acts of speeding.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I shall not get into a debate about whether the hon. Gentleman's last assertion is correct. He participated in the debate on Second Reading and heard what the Secretary of State said. The Secretary of State said that his view was that the right answer was as reflected in the table. I know that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) has tabled a specific amendment, which I can see some merit in. However, I thought that the best starting point would be to take what I understood to be the Government's line. The Minister will no doubt correct me if I am wrong. The danger, and indeed the suspicion, may be that the Government want to take this power on the basis of one set of ideas—to have both lower and higher penalties—but that ultimately they might propose something different from what is set out here, which the Secretary of State supported on Second Reading, and we would not have a chance to change it.

All the arguments are already apparent; the consultation is already taking place. Why can we not decide now what to put in the Bill? If the new schedule were incorporated in the Bill today, the hon. Member for Wellingborough and others could move amendments to it on Report, some of which might be supported by me and my hon. Friends, as well as by the hon. Gentleman's right hon. and hon. Friends.

I am not saying that the new schedule will be the final version, but, it was the best way to ensure that graduated penalties—this serious reform of road traffic law—were included in the Bill. I do not develop from my own background the arguments in support of each of these graduated penalties. I put them forward on the basis that they are the ones that the Government want. I did not want to make life even more difficult for myself as an Opposition spokesman by trying to get the Government on side. I thought that I would adopt those arguments supported by the Secretary of State.

Andy Reed (Labour/Co-operative, Loughborough)

I am grateful for that explanation. Clearly it is useful at some stage to start a debate. However, it would be helpful if, having tabled the new schedule, the hon. Gentleman spoke to it with support for the individual figures. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough, I would be horrified at the idea that driving at 40 mph in a 30 mph zone would be classified as the norm to get three points. I am not sure that we as a Committee, on behalf of the rest of the House of Commons, have the ability to decide something as substantial as that. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman could talk to his new schedule. He has just said that he will not, but it would be useful if he set out in more detail why he believes that the figures would be acceptable to the Committee.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I am trying to ensure that we do not have two debates on a similar issue. As I said, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside will shortly introduce a debate on her proposition, and I look forward to hearing her arguments, because I suspect that quite a lot of hon. Members are sympathetic to it. My approach was to have a starting point that was overtly supported by the Secretary of State on Second Reading.

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

Will the hon. Gentleman respond to my hon. Friend's question with more clarity? He knows—the evidence shows—that 90 per cent. of pedestrians hit at 40mph will die. Yet he is proposing that even driving at 40 mph in a 30 mph district should attract only three points. Does he honestly believe that to be a good proposal?

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), the Chairman of the Select Committee, made an interesting comment on Second Reading, when she said that there was 54 or 58 per cent. non-compliance—I have not looked up the original figures—with the 30-mph speed limit. Therefore, speed limits are broken to a considerable extent. It would be desirable, as I said on Second Reading, to have much more discretion in the prosecution of and penalties for those who break speed limits, because the range of circumstances is enormous. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman disagrees. In fact, earlier in this sitting he suggested that he was sympathetic to the proposition that circumstances are different on different occasions.

I am unhappy about the idea that there is a trade-off against injustice—for instance, people identified as speeding in light traffic by speed cameras suffering the same penalty as those who are caught when the traffic conditions are much heavier and, more importantly, the incidence of vulnerable road users is much greater. Concern has been expressed by some of the motoring organisations that there is some sort of trade-off: the Government realise that there is a great deal of rough justice, so the people who are just over the speed limit might get only two points, rather than a higher penalty. I am a bit suspicious about that. However, my purpose in putting forward the amendment was to engage the support of the hon. Member for Wellingborough and others for the proposition that the detail should be included in the Bill. Whether his idea, or that of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside, or anybody else's, finally emerges, Parliament will have control over the process, rather than leaving it to the Executive. That is my primary concern, and my purpose in putting forward the new schedule. If the hon. Member for Wellingborough votes in favour of the new schedule, I can assure him that I shall not hold him to supporting every detail of it, because he will be supporting it in the knowledge that it will be possible to amend it to reflect other decisions of the Committee later on.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Pike.

We will shortly discuss a number of amendments, in a debate introduced by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside. I have an amendment in that group, so I shall reserve the majority of my arguments for that debate and will now concentrate solely on the concern of the hon. Member for Christchurch about whether precise bands should be included in the legislation. Normally, I argue that as much as possible should be included in Bills—I believe that that is right, and I dislike secondary legislation in general. In this case, I shall argue the opposite, because I can foresee a situation in which we introduce, say, two penalty points in the circumstances that the hon. Member for Christchurch has outlined, and rapidly realise that it was a horrendous mistake. I do not think that we would be able to return to primary legislation to correct that mistake, and it is important that we have the ability to make changes if we discover that what we have done is not correct.

I have grave doubts about going down to two points in relation to speed limits lower than 40 mph, as I shall explain later. I would wish to have the safeguard that, if that did happen, there would be a reasonably straightforward way in which Parliament could make a change without having to resort to primary legislation.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Does the hon. Gentleman support the idea that we should, during these proceedings, put something into the Bill, coupled with a power for the Secretary of State to amend any of the detail in the schedule, should he so wish?

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I have not considered that. Our next debate will be about laying down minimum criteria, and I do not want to go through that debate now, and trespass on the good nature of the Chair. I should merely like to say that I do not support the schedule because I believe that we should have the ability to change. It is not a situation in which primary legislation is appropriate.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I welcome you as well, Mr. Pike. I clarified with your co-Chairman that I could take off my jacket, but I have not done so, because I was told off once by a Chairman for doing it without asking.

Peter Pike (Labour, Burnley)

Order. I do not expect to be asked. As far as I am concerned, in Committee's that I chair, if Members wish to remove their jackets they may automatically do so.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

It might be helpful if the Clerks' Department were to publish a list of the views of each member of the Chairmen's Panel—and we could move on.

As I understand the Government's position, there is nothing between us and them on the principle of grading. I have no difficulty in agreeing with the Government and supporting my hon. Friends. Rather like my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, I would not wish to go to the stake over any of the figures, but let us make sure that there is a consensus.

Having got that out of the way, my first point is underlined by the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed), who was ever so helpful to my case when he said that we as a Committee ought not to be in a position to take these decisions on behalf of the House of Commons. I agree with him, and, welcoming him to my long-standing cause to ensure that Governments of the day, irrespective of party, have the least necessary power to do the job that they should be doing, I would extend his point. Continually to give Secretaries of State the power to introduce more and more legislation by order is something that I am concerned about.

The hon. Gentleman makes the case better than I. When he says that the Committee is not capable of taking these decisions, and that it should be the House of Commons that does so, I say, ''Exactly so.'' The Secretary of State should not be the person who takes the decision by order; it should be the whole House, following a proper debate. If there must be a statutory instrument, I do not know whether in this instance it will be by an affirmative or negative resolution, and it cannot be amended either way, so I believe that we should have control over the decision. There are some things in this world that can usefully be seen as administrative chores. I do not mind Secretaries of State doing chores; I object to Secretaries of State controlling my life.

Many of constituents feel passionately about their rights to drive their cars. It works up more agitation than many other issues, and our constituents have every right to look to us as their elected representatives, rather than leave it to whoever happens to be Secretary of State, to settle such matters as whether they lose their licence and how quickly they lose it. It is possible that a fairly prominent politician who took pride in not driving would want to persecute car drivers. If we were to have such a Secretary of State, who knows what might happen on the basis of a personal view? I am against this approach in principle.

I am sure that the Government will say that we do not want such provisions in the Bill, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch says, when the Minister responds he needs to tell us what the Government think about the figures. Whether or not they should be in the Bill, we are being asked to agree to give the Secretary of State power. If the Minister wants us to accept that our approach is wrong, it would be ever so helpful if he could tell us what the current Secretary of State might use such powers for.

Andy Reed (Labour/Co-operative, Loughborough)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and for trying to portray what I was trying to say earlier. Similar to his hon. Friend, I would be interested to know whether he supports the figures in the chart, because I am worried not only about the principle. The point that I was trying to make about the Committee not being able to make the decision is that we have an amendment before us that includes some figures, and if we agree to it and include it in the Bill, serious consequences will follow. I am not quite sure that in a half-hour or even a 20-minute debate, we can go into the provision's finer implications.

Aside from the general implications of amending the Bill, I would be interested to know whether the hon. Gentleman would speak to any of the mileage figures, whether they are from the table or the graduated penalties.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I may or I may not; it just depends on how the debate unfolds. If the Minister were to accept that approach and give some indication of the sort of figures that he thinks should apply, I might be prepared to agree with the Government.

If the Minister were to say that he accepted the principle but wanted to come back on Report with a well-researched schedule, I would feel much more confident about joining the debate. We ought to establish first whether the Government accept the approach. If they do, more than half an hour would be needed to deal with the matter. For the moment, that is where I will leave it, except that I shall come back on one other related point in a moment.

I am pleased with the suggestion that there ought to be or could be some flexibility. There is an admission of the need for flexibility, whether it is achieved by order or this amendment, as well as graded points. We have had this debate before, so I shall not go over the ground again. If the Government cannot go as far as I would like, I would welcome an approach that indicated that they at least see the difference between something that attracts six penalty points and something that attracts two penalty points. Perhaps if I had been more alert before the Committee started, it would have been possible to table a new schedule that provided for no penalty points up to two penalty points at the lowest level. I readily accept that even in the worst circumstances certain things need punishing by penalty points. There is some flexibility here, which I welcome.

The hon. Member for Wellingborough said that, because most people are killed at speeds of less than 45 mph, we should not limit the number of penalty points to two. It is as though he assumes that arguing for fewer points is the same thing as saying, ''Let us scrap penalties completely and invite people to drive fast.'' I do not buy into the concept that people would race past schools if the current arrangements were changed. I do not know where the evidence is for that.

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

My point is simply that the penalty should reflect the danger posed by that culpable driver. If 50 per cent. of pedestrians hit at 30 mph will live but 90 per cent. of pedestrians hit at 40 mph will die, I see no justification at all for the penalty point reduction that he advocates in the 30 to 40 mph span.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. Such questions are part and parcel of determining what detail one would support. I understand his argument, but he seems to advance it on the basis that anything less than we have at present is an open invitation to flout the law. We should not automatically rule out consideration of variations up and down in all circumstances. That is all that I am saying, and I would not wish to go to the stake for something else.

Andy Reed (Labour/Co-operative, Loughborough)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that he is probably sending out a mixed message? I almost could have lived with sticking at three points and then graduated penalties upwards, but reducing the penalty to two points, particularly with the figures in the new schedule, sends out a message that driving between 30 and 39 mph is more acceptable than it was before. Is not that the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough was making, and is not that the message that the Committee would send if we were to agree to the provision?

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I doubt that abolishing hanging for stealing sheep was seen as an open invitation to steal sheep. I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

Is my hon. Friend aware that the argument that he has just been deploying about people not deliberately driving at 39 mph in order to get two penalty points instead of three is the same argument that was deployed by the Secretary of State on Second Reading to support the figures in the table?

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

Exactly so. We should not be inflexible if we are trying to introduce flexibility. I understand, Mr. Pike, that if you were to allow this debate to continue, and if we were willing to continue it, we could be picking over the figures at this time tomorrow, having made no progress whatsoever. To me, that is not the purpose of the debate.

The purpose is, first, to explore the approach of flexibility and graduated penalties—I think that we all agree with that—and, secondly, to explore whether we should be giving more power to the Secretary of State in those circumstances. I support the first principle. I do not support giving that power to the Secretary of State. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has done the Committee a service by bringing forward his amendment. He is not claiming that it is perfect. I gather that Labour. Members do not consider it anywhere near perfection, but that is not the point. I am fascinated to hear what the Minister says. We will see where we go from there.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

We have concentrated on speeding in the debate. However, that is not what the clause is about. As I said when intervening on the hon. Member for Christchurch, the clause is about all offences to which penalties might apply. In amendment No. 12, the hon. Gentleman would, whether inadvertently or intentionally, I do not know which, effectively make the clause apply only to speeding and not to the variable offences for other types of offence. If we passed the amendment, we would be limiting the clause to speeding and would not cover other offences that attract points, such as right-hand turns at no right-hand turn places and yellow box offences. That is the first deficiency of the amendment. In concentrating on speed, the hon. Gentleman has ruled out many other offences which could apply. We are, of course, talking about the ability to increase the penalty as well as the ability to decrease it.

The hon. Gentleman talked about new schedule 1 as a starting point, but it is a finishing point. Once it is in primary legislation, there will be no coming back to it for further discussion or deliberation. The issue will be closed. He argued that the matter should be fixed in the Bill. I will return to the question of where the hon. Gentleman got the figures from. He then intervened on the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross to say that flexibility should be built in for the Secretary of State to change the figures if they are wrong. Is he talking about using a statutory instrument? Ah! Is that not what we have in mind? Once the hon. Member for Christchurch had contradicted himself, he was put right by the hon. Member for Spelthorne, who contradicted him by saying that the figure should be written into the Bill with no discretion. So, there seems to be some confusion about the matter.

I am with those who say that we must return to the issue. I am beginning to regret that we gave those exemplars. We put out not a consultation document but a document for discussion. There is a difference. We wanted to get views about variable penalties and penalty points. The hon. Member for Christchurch said that the document was controversial. Some of it was not controversial. The vast majority of those who made their views known said that they agreed that the law should include the ability to have variable points and penalties for offences. There was widespread agreement on that.

As is often the case, if we put something out for discussion, it instantly becomes a proposal that we are about to inflict on people tomorrow. That is, unfortunately, the way in which debate in this country goes. I do not know whether it is because of our newspapers. If anybody suggests something for debate, it becomes something that will happen immediately.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

Will the Minister tell us the difference between a document for discussion and one for consultation?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

There is a specific format for a consultation document. There is a list of consultees, who we contact proactively. We operate a formal consultation system. Usually, forms go out for people to fill in and add other details. It is more formalised. In many instances, we get similar responses. In this case, because many of the people who responded were used to responding to consultation documents, many responded in a similar form. Nevertheless, it was a discussion.

In the discussion paper, we gave an example of how the system might work in the context of speeding. That is where the amendment came from. However, that was not a proposal. It was just an example of how the system could work. I am beginning to regret that we included it, but we felt that it was helpful. We were being challenged by people who were asking what would actually happen and saying that we could not have a change in the law without concrete proposals. So, we gave an exemplar of how the system could work if that was what we agreed.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I accept what the Minister says, but as I listened to him I began to feel a bit hard done by. Does he accept that, although I do not have a huge number of civil servants to come up with a beautifully honed argument, I was saying before, when I was being questioned, ''What, exactly, is the Minister saying?'' Let us have a discussion. Here are some figures; let us talk about them. We are not necessarily wedded to them. I am grateful to the Minister for using better language than I could find.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I take it, then, that the hon. Gentleman is not in favour of new schedule 1. He must be opposing it. We will probably hear him speak or vote against it later.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

Whatever makes the Minister think that?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

What the hon. Gentleman said a moment ago. I will not presume it any further.

The hon. Gentleman made an interesting point. He talked about the right to drive a car. I defend that right. There are many people, certainly in my constituency—in which not everybody is affluent—who are driving a car that they were not driving five, six or seven years ago, when the economy was not doing so well and employment was not as high as it is today. However, along with the right to drive a car comes the responsibility to drive carefully. The more vehicles that there are on the road, the more we must ensure that people are responsible and careful. The responsibility of Government is to ensure that people exercise their right to drive a car in a way that does not infringe the rights of others.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

When the Minister reads Hansard, he will find that I did not say that people have the right to drive cars when, where, how and as irresponsibly as they like. I simply said that there is a right to drive. I agree with him, but he is putting words in my mouth.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

No, I did not put words in the hon. Gentleman's mouth; I included some extra words in Hansard. I wanted to make it clear that I agree with him on the right to drive, but that my understanding of that is that people should also have responsibilities. I was outlining that the Government have a responsibility to ensure that people drive safely. Parliament also has a responsibility. That is why the measures in the Bill will be so helpful in ensuring that that happens.

Making the proposals apply only to speeding is unhelpful and I would oppose the amendment and new schedule on that basis. The hon. Gentleman said that he wanted further discussion. We want further discussion, but if we agreed to new schedule 1, it would inhibit further discussion. What I heard on Second Reading, at the beginning of today's debate and from people outside Parliament, and what I will hear a bit more in a moment, is that some of the things in the discussion paper—very few things—are controversial. I want the ability to have flexibility, but I also want a further period of reflection about thresholds and implementation. I want to listen carefully to what Parliament and those outside Parliament have to say when we come up with more concrete proposals following consultation.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

I have listened carefully to what the Minister said. I would like him to confirm that I have understood correctly that the consultation document, or discussion document, and the schedule therein, are purely exemplars and that the Government are completely open to representations and evidence as to what are or are not the best figures.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I should just like to correct the hon. Gentleman on one point. It was not a consultation document but a discussion document. A consultation would be more likely to include Government proposals, but these were not even proposals. They were exemplars of how a system might operate. Perhaps that might also make the distinction clear for my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside. They were not proposals, but examples of how a system could work if we chose to operate it in that way.

In the light of the debate we are having and further representations we receive, if the Bill receives Royal Assent in its present form we would want to introduce a proposal, which would be firmed up into a statutory instrument. That would then be put before the House under the positive resolution procedure.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

So the proposition that will be introduced for consultation will not necessarily be what is contained in the exemplar table. If that is so, why was the Secretary of State so keen to defend the contents of the exemplar table on Second Reading, as though it were Government policy?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

No, what the Secretary of State defended was the ability to give the variable penalties. He also said that the next stage of the process will be open to consultation. That is what was said then; it is still true, and it is the position I want.

The matter has created an interesting debate, which will probably flow into the discussion of the next group of amendments. However, I ask the Committee to oppose this particular amendment.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

It has indeed been a useful debate, and the Minister has clarified the matter of extending the graduated fixed penalty points beyond the area of speeding, although that has not hitherto been flagged up in any Government document. It was the Home Office review of road traffic penalties that flagged up the need for some higher fixed penalties for those concerned about excessive speeding. There was never any suggestion that we would be considering different degrees of gravity in relation to some of the other offences to which the Minister referred.

I have not got the Official Report detailing what happened on Second Reading, but I sat through the whole debate and I heard with my own ears what the Secretary of State said. I think the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) has a copy of the record of that debate, and I would be surprised if the Secretary of State did not say that what was contained in the proposals on new graduated fixed penalties for speeding was his judgment of the best way forward. However, if the Government are changing their mind on that in response to pressure, we shall no doubt find out more about it in the next debate.

The best way forward would be to see what comes out of the next debate. It may well be that after the next debate we shall get closer to reaching a consensus on what should be contained in such a table. If we do get to that stage, I would support the idea of including it in the Bill on Report, perhaps subject to the ability of the Government to change it later. That is a very different proposition from giving the Government discretion to change everything, and taking their word in good faith without the opportunity to amend the detail of the secondary legislation. In the mean time, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

I beg to move amendment No. 27, in clause 3, page 3, line 8, at end insert—

'(8B) The Secretary of State may not make any order under subsection (3A) above which would have the effect of reducing the fixed penalty for exceeding a speed limit set at or below 30 miles per hour below 3 points.'.

Peter Pike (Labour, Burnley)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 3, in clause 16, page 22, line 29, leave out '2-6' and insert '3-6'.

No. 28, in clause 16, page 22, line 29, leave out '2-6' and insert '1-5'.

No. 4, in clause 16, page 22, line 33, leave out '2-6' and insert '3-6'.

No. 29, in clause 16, page 22, line 33, leave out '2-6' and insert '1-5'.

'''3-6 or appropriate penalty points (fixed penalty points (fixed penalty) if committed in respect of a speed limit on a restricted road; 2-6 penalty points (fixed penalty) in other cases.''

(c) ''restricted road'' in subsection (b) means a road as restricted in section 82 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (c. 27).'.

No. 5, in clause 16, page 22, line 34, at end add

'if committed in respect of a speed limit on a restricted road; 2-6 or appropriate penalty points (fixed penalty) in any other case, and (c) ''restricted road'' in paragraph (b) means a road defined as restricted in section 82 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (c. 27).'.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

The lead amendment is very specific. Its aim is to prevent the Government's proposals for graduated penalties from reducing a fixed penalty for exceeding speed limits of 30 mph or less to below three points.

The concern about the issue has arisen from the Government's discussion document. I note the Minister's statement that he regrets having published it. I am not sure whether he regrets having published the document, or whether he has regrets about some of the proposals in it. One of them is to reduce the penalty points by a third for people driving at between 30 and 39 mph in a 30 mph zone, as well as reducing the fine. I am extremely concerned about that. I know from the statements made by my hon. Friends in this Committee, as well as by others on Second Reading and elsewhere, that that concern is widespread.

To explain the reasons for that concern, let me quote the Department for Transport's own very powerful advertising campaign. It was launched on 11 January and will continue until February. It states very clearly, ''It's 30 for a reason''—''30'' being the 30 mph speed limit. The campaign centres round a poster, which is accompanied by graphic sequences, now on television and due to be shown in the cinema, showing the profound difference for a pedestrian between the impact of being knocked down by a vehicle travelling at 30 mph and one travelling at 40 mph. Both the poster and the graphics are very effective.

The campaign sends out the very good message that the Department regards the 30 mph speed limit as something of extreme importance, and relates it directly to the safety of pedestrians. It is clear that speed kills. It is a contributory factor in some 1,000 deaths and 38,000 injuries every year. The evidence is that a change of speed, an increase at around the 30 mph mark, has the greatest effect on the potential for killing and seriously injuring vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists.

It is true that drivers cannot be held responsible for all accidents that happen; they are not always to blame. However, in setting appropriate speed limits, particularly in built-up areas, surely we must take account of the nature of pedestrian and cyclist movements, as well as of those of drivers. The facts borne out by the evidence are clear: a driver is twice as likely to kill a pedestrian if he hits him at 35 mph than if he hits him at 30 mph. At 30 mph, half of those knocked down will survive, but at 40 mph 90 per cent. of adults and 80 per cent. of children will die.

Most pedestrian and cyclist casualties occur in built-up areas where the speed limit is 30 mph or lower. In 2003, only 145 of the 2,976 children killed or seriously injured while walking or cycling were not on built-up roads, so the problem is not just about speeding but about speeding in built-up areas where there is a speed limit of 30 mph. Every death is tragic and every serious injury sustained is of serious concern and can disrupt and damage the individual's life, possibly for ever.

Beyond that, however, there is a link between death and serious injury to vulnerable road users and poverty. Let us consider the situation in part of Liverpool, where a safer road partnership is now operating. The figures for 2002 showed that 100 per cent. of people killed or seriously injured in the zero to 11 age range and 50 per cent. of all car occupants killed or seriously injured in the 25 to 39 age range occurred in the north Liverpool area, which is in the top 5 per cent. of deprived areas in the UK. I repeat that, while every death or serious injury to anybody, wherever they are and whatever their position in life, is equally tragic, there is a concentration of the problem in areas that are deprived.

At the moment, 58 per cent. of drivers in built-up areas break the speed limit, and there is a preponderance and concentration of fatalities and serious accidents and injuries in the same built-up areas. In those circumstances, and given the evidence that we have nationally and locally, what sense can it make to reduce the penalties for speeding at the threshold where people are most vulnerable to death and injury on the road? I cannot see any reason for doing that. It would weaken the deterrent message that the Government and the Department for Transport are trying to send out.

I do not oppose the principle of graduated penalties. It is important that, before penalties are set, there is the widest possible consultation and consideration of the impact of those penalties. I do oppose, in principle, reducing the penalties in the area in which it has been proved that most harm is caused to pedestrians and cyclists.

In conclusion, I return to the poster issued by the Department for Transport. On it, a child says:

''Hit at 40mph: There is an 80 per cent. chance I'll die. Hit at 30mph: There is an 80 per cent. chance I'll live.''

With those facts in front of us, and having listened to what the Minister said, I hope he will assure us that the Government will not go ahead with the statement in the discussion document, which is widely regarded as a proposal.

John Thurso (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

The hon. Lady has put the case powerfully. I will not repeat either her arguments, which she put extremely ably, or the statistics, which I suspect most of us in the Room agree with and are knowledgeable about. I made similar points and used similar statistics on Second Reading and will not take up the Committee's time with them.

It seems to me that the objectives of the Bill and the clause must be twofold. The first is to make our roads safer and to ensure that the number of people killed or seriously injured diminishes. That is what we are all here to do. The second objective is to ensure that the system of justice and the application of justice for motorists and motoring offences is appropriate and just.

The amendments all share at heart a similar concern that, particularly in built-up areas where the speed limit is 40 mph or below or, most probably 30 mph, the outcome of the accident is not properly reflected by a reduction in penalty points from three to two. If the Government were to adopt the schedule in their discussion paper—and I am grateful to the Minister for his reassurance that they are open to persuasion—the House would effectively say to the outside world, ''We are a third less worried about 30 mph to 39 mph than you all thought we were, and a little bit of moderate speeding in towns isn't that bad.'' However much we may seek to address other questions about the perceived injustice or justice in respect of motorists, for the House to send out that message would be wholly wrong. We must be careful about what we say, what we include in law and the effect that it has on public perception.

It is possible to change what we want to do in order to send out the appropriate message and to ensure that the motorist is correctly dealt with. To do that, we must ask the right questions, and I am not sure that we are. Two issues relate to speed. First, there are questions about whether speed limit signs are correct. We will come to amendments on that subject later, so I will not trespass on it now. However, the questions include whether we should have more 20 mph home zones, and whether roads in rural villages should all have 30 mph limits. There are many areas in which we could lower the speed limit; there are also areas where the speed limit might be examined and raised. Occasionally speed limits have been put up and the 30 mph sign is so far in front of a village that the motorist asks, ''What's the point of this?'' He speeds through the first quarter mile or half mile and does not slow down at the point where the real danger starts.

Secondly, there is the perceived injustice—I stress perceived—that motorists feel when the totting up after four offences brings them to 12 points and obligatory disqualification. I will argue an extreme case, which I do not think is particularly likely, but it is possible for a motorist to be caught four times in succession on a motorway doing 75 mph or 76 mph, receive three points for each of those and then a ban. One might well say that that motorist was somewhat hard done by. My example is unlikely given the way in which our current legislation is enforced and the guidelines that exist, but it is possible.

With respect to the amendments, however, I am deeply concerned that if the proposals advanced were to become law, we would send a message to motorists that is wholly wrong and counter-productive for areas where the speed limit is below 40 mph, and particularly 30 mph.

I have no problem with the overall principle of graduated punishment to fit the growing severity of crime—that is part of the British justice system and I have no qualms about it. I believe strongly that the outcome for pedestrians, particularly children, has to be taken into account. The statistics dealing with cars travelling below 40 mph and at around 30 mph—as has been well illustrated by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside—show that a child is 90 per cent. likely to die if hit by a car going at 39 mph. We simply cannot afford to send out a message that does not take account of that fact. I look forward to hearing what other Committee members say, and the Minister's response. I am grateful to note from the previous debate that the Minister is listening to our representations.

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

It is a pleasure, Mr. Pike, to serve on a Committee that you chair, with all your experience and fair-mindedness to guide us. I declare that I co-chair the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, but all I shall say is my own contribution.

I support the desire of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside to defend the importance of the 30 mph speed limit. As she said in her powerful speech, there is currently a hard-hitting Government advertising campaign reinforcing the 30 mph limit, and the graphic television advertisement ends with the slogan, ''It's 30 for a reason''. We all ought to pause and remember that, in the areas where there is a 30 mph limit, there is most likely to be the greatest interaction between motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. Of course, among the cyclists and pedestrians, there will be a high proportion of children.

Although we have a good record of reducing casualties in comparison with many countries, we do not do as well in terms of child casualties. However, the statistics show our international reputation: we do better than most countries and we have a very good record. However, the statistics show that, last year, there were 3,508 fatalities on our roads, 33,707 serious injuries and more than 253,000 slight injuries.

All of us have probably met someone who has been touched by a tragedy caused by deaths on the road, so we can all appreciate most vividly the human effects of those deaths, and serious and slight injuries on our roads. That should be enough to make us determined to drive those figures down still further. However, dare I say that there is also an economic cost? The latest figures, from 2002, show an economic cost of each fatality to the public purse of £1,447,490, £168,260 for each serious injury and £16,750 for each slight injury. As guardians of the public purse, we should also want to drive down the number of casualties on our roads in order to save money too.

Most people agree that speed is a contributing factor to about a third of the casualties on our roads. There are more than 1,000 deaths on our roads a year because of excessive speed. That is why it is important to get people to reduce speed: it will reduce casualties on our roads.

I have explained that most of the danger is in built-up areas where the speed limit is 30 mph. As the law makers in this country, if we are satisfied that that is the right speed limit, we should expect all citizens to stick to it. When the hon. Member for Christchurch tells us about huge non-compliance, that should concern us and we should want to do something about it. I would not have thought that we would conclude that the best way to secure better compliance was to reduce the penalties for the offence. We should want to do something about matters such as the enforcement of the law, education and engineering measures to force vehicles to stick to the speed limit.

On the same day as Second Reading, the Secretary of State published a written statement about the responses that he had received to the discussion notes that he published on 1 September. He gives a helpful breakdown of what people said about his proposals. I would like to mention what he said about our activities. He points out that the Bill proposes that there must be statutory consultation on any fixed proposals that the Secretary of State might wish to make. He says:

''I believe that the Bill should provide for the possibility of a lower penalty in the appropriate circumstances.''

He adds that when he issues his proposals, there will be consultation and, of course, he says that he will consider

''all comments that hon. Members may have on graduated fixed speeding penalties, in discussions on the Bill.''—[Official Report, House of Commons, 11 January 2005; Vol. 429, c. 16WS.]

I would like to give my views for the Secretary of State to consider. I suggest that reducing the penalty from three points to two points in 30 mph speed limit areas would give a dangerous signal to people at a time when we are trying to give them the message that they should obey the law. If they do not, people will suffer serious injuries and death. Giving the alternative message would be very dangerous.

Wayne David (Labour, Caerphilly)

My hon. Friend obviously has great knowledge and experience of these issues. Will he tell the Committee, objectively, whether he is aware of any evidence to suggest that lowering the penalty for excessive speed will in any circumstances improve road safety?

David Kidney (Labour, Stafford)

Of course, my hon. Friend anticipates that I will not be able to give any such evidence. He is right: I cannot. I entirely agree with him.

I want to move on to the point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) about the cumulative effects of penalty point endorsements on one's licence. On Second Reading—the hon. Member for Christchurch is quite right; I have got the Hansard with me—the Secretary of State was challenged about giving the wrong message by reducing the penalty points from three to two in 30 to 40 mph areas. He posed the question:

''Is it right to impose a two-point penalty and a 30 to 40 mph speed limit?''

He went on to answer:

''Having considered that question for some weeks, the matter turns on whether people believe that a two-point penalty, as opposed to a three-point penalty, means that someone will be more likely to speed—in other words, the difference is one point.''—[Official Report, 11 January 2005; Vol. 429, c. 218.]

I think that he was picking up on a briefing for Second Reading that we all received from the RAC Foundation, in which it said that it did not believe that there was any lessening of the deterrent effect by having a penalty of two points, rather than three.

I fundamentally disagree that a reduction does not amount to a lessening of the deterrent, but I would also like to bring in the point about cumulative effects. In this country, for many decades, we have espoused the principle that, although one speeding offence might not be enough for somebody to lose their licence, if they keep offending eventually they must get the message in a more severe way: by losing their licence. Initially, we had a general rule that somebody with three endorsements on three separate occasions in three years would, on the third occasion, in addition to the penalty for that offence, lose their licence. That was for speeding and other motoring offences. In 1981, the Conservative Government decided that that was too crude a system and they introduced penalty points. They attributed three penalty points for speeding and said that it would take a cumulation of 12 penalty points in three years to lose one's licence. So, instead of three speeding offences in three years to lose a licence, it was four. It could be argued that that was a lessening of the measure, but it was a new, more sophisticated system. It bedded down well and it has stood the test of time. I would caution against trying to revisit it.

Let us bear in mind somebody who keeps speeding in 30 mph areas at up to 40 mph. They would keep getting two points and they would have to be caught and punished six times in three years for breaking the speed limit—and running the risk of killing somebody—before they lost their licence. That would take quite some doing. Therefore, reducing the risk that totting up will lead to a compulsory disqualification is a second lessening of the deterrent.

I have a great deal of respect for the RAC Foundation and do not dismiss its arguments lightly. I support its proposal of more educational courses for people who we catch committing offences, which is a better route for us to choose than the one proposed. In this case, that would mean speed awareness courses, which are not yet universal across the country. Staffordshire recently joined the scheme and has been running courses for a year. I hope that we can catch more speeders and either require them or make it worth their while to undergo such a course.

I look back to the interdepartmental working party on road traffic law of the Department of Transport and the Home Office in 1981, just before the Transport Act 1981. Even then it was suggested that further consideration should be given to the introduction of compulsory remedial training schemes for offenders. It is time that we made that old idea a reality.

I tabled amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 5, which provide a range of options that would not involve going under three penalty points. Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 taken together would mean that under no circumstances would a motorist be able to pick up just two penalty points for a speeding offence. Amendment No. 4 on its own would mean that only on motorways and trunk roads would somebody pick up only two points for a speeding offence.

On amendment No. 5, something was lost in the translation. I had intended to table an amendment with the exact wording of amendment No. 37, to which the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross spoke. It would have the effect that nobody driving under 40 mph would be able to receive a two-point penalty.

That great range of choices leads me to conclude that the Minister is right that there is still work to be done and consultation to be had before a final system is chosen from all the different options. I give the Minister the benefit of the doubt, but I hold the Secretary of State to his word that he is listening to what Members of Parliament say.

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

I shall briefly explain why I endorse all the speeches that have been made thus far on the amendments. I understand the case of my hon. Friend the Minister that this is just an empowering provision and that he seeks flexibility. However, try as I might, I cannot understand why he would want the power or the flexibility to reduce the penalty points for speeding between the limits of 30 to 39 mph when there is a speed limit of 30 mph. After all, speed limits are not arbitrary. We have different speed limits for different areas to reflect the safe driving speed for that locality and the conditions that pertain there. Moreover, there is a clear relationship between excessive speeding and the frequency of accidents, and there is an even more clear direct relationship between excessive speeding and fatalities. We have seen the figures: 20 per cent. of people will die when hit at 30 mph, but 90 per cent. will die at 40 mph. I happen to believe that the penalties for driving offences should reflect that evidence of increased danger.

We are debating the Road Safety Bill at a time when there are adverts that explain the rationale for the 30 mph limit. Other hon. Members have alluded to them. How can we come to this place and argue to reduce the penalty for driving at that very cusp where there is so obviously an increased danger to life, especially when we know that the people who are most at risk are children in poorer areas—working-class areas? Those are the people who are dying. We should remember that 3,500 people die on our roads every year, leaving behind countless other victims: parents, in-laws, sisters, brothers and friends. For all those reasons, it seems inappropriate that we could send out a mixed message today.

Earlier this week, I was on a Radio 5 Live phone-in programme about road fatalities. I heard many chilling contributions from people who had lost loved ones, but in some respects the most chilling contribution of all was a text saying, ''Get a life—99.9 per cent. of us speed and none of us intend to kill.'' But the fact is that 3,500 people die every year. I wonder whether that is because people drive at excessive speeds, where there is a 30 mph limit in particular.

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

I do not think, Mr. Pike, that I have served under your chairmanship before, and it is a pleasure to do so.

I also come to these debates as a complete novice. Unlike most other members of the Committee, I have not studied these issues before. Like almost all motorists, I was hugely impressed by the Government's campaign—the poster campaign to which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside referred—and even more so by the starkness of the television campaign. I confess to having been one of those drivers who thought that if I was driving at roughly 30 mph in built-up areas, I was doing all right. That campaign made me ashamed, and made me reassess how I drive in city areas. I found the campaign chilling and very effective.

I was equally impressed by the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Riverside, for Caerphilly (Mr. David) and for Stafford and of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. Their understanding of the matter, and the points that they made in support of their amendments, are telling; I was impressed and persuaded by them. However, although I agree with them, is it not possible that debates about penalty points are slightly missing the point? The whole thrust of the Government's campaign was that it is speed that kills. The only radical way to address that problem, and to try to bring down the horrific figures of which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside reminded the Committee, is to reduce the speed.

If fewer children—and adults—are killed at 30 mph than at 40 mph, is that not a compelling reason, in built-up and residential areas where there is currently a 30 mph speed limit, for reducing that limit to 20 mph? Being a novice, I do not know whether there are compelling reasons for that being a naive approach. Perhaps a 20 mph speed limit would paralyse city centres, although I cannot imagine that that would be true, because in few city centres does the traffic move at anything like 20 mph.

Such a reduction in speed limit would not be a huge inconvenience to us as motorists, and I would have thought that it had a much better chance of being effective than playing around with the penalty points system or retaining the penalty point system and making it tougher. However, I propose that not as a substitute for the penalty points system, but in addition to it. I hope that, at various points in our consideration of the Bill, the Minister will address that problem.

There may be opportunities later in our consideration of the Bill to debate speed limits. In view of the excellent points that have been made in this short debate, I believe that there is a compelling reason for reducing the limit to 20 mph. The public might not like it, initially, and might view it as the nanny state, but if it saved a great many lives and only marginally inconvenienced us as motorists, there is a strong case in favour of it.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

This has been an excellent debate, and it is great that, unlike on some Standing Committees on which I have served, everyone is joining in, with the exception of the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary, who I imagine has other responsibilities and does not wish to join in, and, of course the lady Whip, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron), although she has been given plenty of food for thought in listening to the potent comments of Government Members.

The debate has highlighted the fact that the Government are making a mistake in simply equating the gravity of a speeding offence with the extent to which the limit was exceeded. It is apparent to everyone who studied the subject that the circumstances in which the speeding takes place are what is important. That is why someone speeding over the 30 mph limit in a built-up area when there are vulnerable road users around is committing a more serious offence than somebody who does the same thing when there is nobody around apart from a few urban foxes.

Nothing in the graduated points system addresses that issue. It always used to be that one should drive at an appropriate speed in all circumstances. Enforcement became difficult and it was tiresome to assess each case on its circumstances, and so speed limits were brought in as a proxy for the proposition that one should keep one's driving at an appropriate speed.

We have now got to the situation where speed limits do not have flexibility, apart from on some motorways following the Road Traffic Act 1991, which I had the privilege of steering through the House. That introduced the power for variable speed limits. I want much more use of that power, particularly in urban areas, where there are widely differing circumstances. They depend, for example, on the time of day.

There should also be more scope for flexibility. The perfect speed limit is one that it is inappropriate to exceed in perfect conditions. That is what it should be. Most people now seem to think that it is perfectly all right to exceed the speed limit in good conditions, within the tolerance allowed by the police, and to keep roughly within the limit when conditions are not very good.

The importance of speed limits has been eroded because local authorities have often set speed limits that are inappropriate or that are not appropriate in all circumstances. Unfortunately, as the Minister has made clear, the rather rigid approach to variable penalties for speeding does not allow any scope for taking into account different circumstances. That is why the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside was on to a good point with the amendment.

The hon. Lady, like all of us, is concerned about the messages that are going out. The Government spend an enormous amount of taxpayers' money on trying to promote a clear road safety message. As politicians, we know that the message must be very straightforward for people to begin to understand it and that it must be repeated on many occasions for it to get home.

When I was the road safety Minister, we were banging on about the different consequences of a collision at 40 mph, 30 mph or 20 mph. Ten years later, the Government are still advertising and promoting that message. It is important that we, as a legislature, do not do anything that will undermine that message. However, at the same time, we must have regard to common sense.

Andy Reed (Labour/Co-operative, Loughborough)

I was wondering whether, just because 58 per cent. of people are not obeying the law, should we give up and say that breaking the law by driving faster than 30 mph is okay? The hon. Gentleman is right that we have been banging on for a long time about the differences between the injuries caused at 30 mph and at 40 mph, but is it not right that we stick at that, as has been the case with many other road safety messages, such as those on seatbelts? It takes almost a generation to change the culture. Would it not be better to keep banging away, rather than to move towards flexibility at this stage and send out the wrong message? I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would support that.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The hon. Gentleman makes his point, but I think that we should introduce more flexibility with regard to speed limits, if it is possible to do so. It is clear that driving at a given speed through an urban area will be safer when few people are around than when pedestrians are tumbling off the pavements and almost into the path of vehicles. That is common sense.

Wayne David (Labour, Caerphilly)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many members of the public would say the opposite? They would prefer more policemen to be engaged in duties other than traffic duties.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I do not meet those members of the public. However, I am impressed by some of the ginger groups that operate on behalf of motorists, such as the Association of British Drivers, which is behind the sensible speeds initiative. It is against all the fixed penalties and the insensitive enforcement. It wants more sensitive discretion to be exercised in enforcement, and it realises that the best way to bring that about and to bring to book the very bad drivers who are such a menace on our roads is to have more police.

The hon. Gentleman backs his party's policy of significantly reducing the number of traffic police, and I am sure that, in due course, he will get his reward from the Government for having supported them on a policy that is absurd and totally counter-productive in terms of road safety.

We could carry on debating this matter for much longer. However, as I made a full contribution to the previous debate, I will conclude now, and wait with bated breath to hear what the Minister has to say.

Richard Younger-Ross (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge)

I apologise for missing the beginning of the debate.

The Minister may be sitting very comfortably at the moment, thinking that he is positioned somewhere between Labour Back Benchers, the Liberal Democrats, and those on the Conservative Front Bench. However, being in the middle is not always right. I ask him to listen to the points that have been made, and in particular those from his Back Benchers in strong support of amendment No. 3, rather than those for Conservative amendment No. 28.

The most pertinent point was made by the hon. Member for Stafford. There is always a lot of pressure in all our constituencies from people who want reduced speed limits in residential areas. The police resist that because, by and large, they cannot police them as they do not have the resources to put in place the mobile cameras and so forth. However, I have something to say about whether a penalty of two points is appropriate. Situations outside schools are easy to deal with, but I can think of two or three dead-end residential streets in my constituency—Third avenue in Teignmouth, for example—where there have been complaints about cars going too fast. We are trying to get the police to put a speed camera in place there to catch the young drivers who speed and to get them to slow down. We may catch them once, but there is not a chance in hell of my being able to get a mobile speed camera there on six separate occasions and to catch a repeat offender. There is no opportunity to do that. Therefore, reducing the penalty to two points for the lower speed limits will mean that people can speed almost with impunity, because they know that they might get caught once, but that they are very unlikely to be caught two, three or four times after that.

Retaining three points for the lower speed limits is therefore entirely appropriate. There must be a risk that persistent speeders, particularly those who speed in built-up areas, will lose their licences. At the end of the day, if they persist in speeding, they are not going to lose their licences, but another person is going to lose their life. As my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said, the difference between a 30 mph impact on a child and a 40 mph impact is the difference between the child being in hospital and the child being in a grave.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

This has been a full and extremely well informed debate, and I wish that all debates in Standing Committees could rise to such quality. The tone was set by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside, who made a powerful contribution in her inimitable way—quiet, but astonishingly persuasive and strong.

My hon. Friend has had a long-standing interest in such matters, both personally and through the Transport Committee. The proposals in the Bill were the subject of an inquiry by that Committee and we were grateful to it for the views expressed. It is unusual, although not unique, for such a Bill to go before a Select Committee, and I am pleased that that was possible.

My hon. Friend painted a picture that we in the Department have been considering as well. The rate of death increases exponentially as the speed increases; so, at 20 mph there is a very high rate of survival of crashes, but beyond 40 mph, and certainly at 50 mph, pedestrians are unlikely to survive. She referred to the campaign of posters and to the television advert that the Department put out recently, as did my hon. Friends the Members for Stafford and for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher). That advert is good because it does not show the blood-and-guts side, but a girl having an 80 per cent. chance of survival after being hit at 30 mph, with the caption ''It's 30 for a reason''. If a child is hit at a higher speed, the chances are that she will not appear to mend as she does in our advert.

My hon. Friend also said that she was not opposed to the principle of graduated penalties. In response to the discussion document that we put out, that view was almost universally expressed by all who made the case. She made a persuasive case, as did others, and I assure her that her views will be listened to in the next stage when we implement the legislation.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross for his support. Just for correction, he talked about enforcement on the motorway of a 76 mph speed limit. In theory that is possible, but the Association of Chief Police Officers guidelines refer to 10 per cent. plus two, and my arithmetic tells me that that makes 79 mph. In reality, however, I think that the enforced limit is somewhat higher than that, although that would depend on the circumstances and the police force concerned. However, they all use good sense in such matters.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the example of 30 mph to 35 mph attracting three points. Again, the limit is not enforced at those speeds but at higher speeds. I thought that I would mention that in case someone read our proceedings and thought the limits were implemented in the way that he described.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford made a helpful speech. His chairmanship of PACTS is well known. PACTS also had a session on the Bill and interrogated me and my officials, which, again, we found very useful. He made a point that should underlie our thinking in this debate: in comparison with the rest of the world—certainly with the rest of Europe—we have one of the best records on road safety, and I am proud of that. Over the years, what successive Governments have done has led to a relatively good record on our roads. Notice that I say ''relatively''. Whether that record is acceptable is another matter. We would not be discussing the Road Safety Bill if we thought that our record was satisfactory.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough said that the majority—or a large number, at least—of people injured on urban roads are children. I am very pleased that during the past two or three years, particularly among children, there has been a dramatic fall in deaths and, in particular, serious injuries on our roads. We set ourselves the target of a 50 per cent. reduction in the number of children killed and seriously injured on the roads over 10 years; in just over three and a half years, we have achieved a 42 per cent. reduction, and that is very pleasing. A bit more arithmetic would enable us to imagine how many children are now, as a result of that, alive and well rather than injured, and we could picture how successful we have been.

The counterpart, however, is that children are still dieing, and that is unacceptable. As many children as go to a medium-sized primary school are killed on our roads each year. When we think about the issue in those terms, we should realise that, although we are improving our record, we have to do much better.

Not only are we doing well in this country—we take such things very seriously—but I am delighted that the European Union and other countries in Europe now look to us as an example of good practice. That tendency is spreading throughout the world; I have been to conferences in other parts of the world and been approached by Governments who want us to help them get a record that compares to ours. I am proud of that. Having said all that, there are no grounds for complacency. Just as figures can go down, they can go up. If we let off our efforts, there would be a good chance that the figures would start going up again.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford mentioned what the Secretary of State said on Second Reading. I shall go a bit further. He said:

''After the Bill is enacted, we will be obliged to consult by statute.''—

I have underlined that point today. He added:

''People must be able to see fairness and proportion in all laws, but I do not believe that the one-point difference that we are discussing, will mean that lots of people say, 'Well, it is all right to break a 30 mph speed limit.' ''—[Official Report, 11 January 2005; Vol. 429, c. 216.]

That is true. People do not suddenly say, ''It is one point down; now I can go as fast as I like as often as I like.'' The Secretary of State's statement was correct, and motoring organisations have made the same point. Notwithstanding that, I have listened carefully to what my hon. Friend said. Our decisions in the future have to be informed by parliamentary debates and by the views of those outside. That will inform the next part of the process.

I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central was going to go into the confessional as he made his comments.

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

I did.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

He did, indeed. If we asked people in this Room to put their hands up, others might join him. However, I shall not invite them to, lest it create embarrassment.

The hon. Member for Christchurch made the good point that the issue is not just about speed, but appropriate speed. Speed limits are seen as a target by a minority of people; they are not. They show the maximum permissible speed on a road. The hon. Gentleman rightly said that that is not necessarily the appropriate speed in all circumstances. We can think of examples in the morning when children are going to school along a busy high street. It could be raining, too, as it was a couple of mornings ago. It is inappropriate to be driving at 30 mph in such circumstances. During the week I reside in London, and to travel at more than 10 or 15 mph at quarter to 9 in the morning down the road near where I live would be grossly irresponsible. Parents are arriving in cars and children are milling about the narrow road.

Amusement was expressed in certain parts of the press that in Plymouth, in part of which is my constituency, there was an advisory speed limit of 10 mph in the home zone. It went out in the press—again, in the way in which we debate matters in this country—that the Government will now impose a restriction of 10 mph. There was a picture of someone with a red flag walking in front of a car on the motorway. It would be outrageous to drive at more than 10 mph in the home zone. Although the speed limit is not compulsory, the local people have enforced the restriction. They approached people who were driving too fast and said, ''Hey, just a minute, you live here as well as I do. You are not going at that speed through our community. Our children are on the streets and people want to use the road as a walking space as well as a driving space.'' Such an approach has worked well. There has been much success.

I shall double check, but it is my view and that of my officials that powers exist for authorities to take up such an option. If it were not the case, perhaps we can promote that idea. The only difficulty with it is that, when we impose a variable speed limit, it must be enforced and signing must be in place. That does not come cheaply. The variable speed limit on the M25 has performed well and I should like that system in other areas, nevertheless it does not come cheaply. We must bear in mind signs, enforcement measures and other matters that go with it.

The hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) referred to many points in his helpful and useful contribution. I hope that members of the Committee understand, first, that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, myself and others in the Department are committed to reducing the number of people killed and injured on our roads. We are determined about that. We are succeeding, but we want to ensure that we continue to succeed. Secondly, the Department's current advertising campaign stresses the importance of the 30 mph limit and that it is not a matter to be treated lightly. If the limit is 30 mph, it is 30 mph and not more than that. Publicity has been drawn to the problems and dangers of travelling faster. It is fairly obvious what the Department feels; such matters are embedded in its thinking.

I listened carefully to the views that were expressed on Second Reading and I have listened carefully to the views that have been expressed today. We should leave the clause as drafted, as it gives us enabling powers. There may be places where we can consider reducing the number of penalty points. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough rightly said, we are talking about road safety. Some yellow boxes and no-right turns are about solving the problem of congestion—to keep traffic moving and to stop people being inconsiderate to others—rather than about safety, and it may be appropriate to take that into account when considering infringements. I would like to hear some more views on the matter.

On that basis I hope that the hon. Lady will ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

In the light of the Minister's assurances I feel more confident that our views have been listened to. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

The Minister made it clear that the clause applies not only to speeding offences. What other offences will it apply to and what will be the time scale for introducing proposals in relation to the other offences?

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

It would apply to any other offences that would attract a fixed penalty. There is a range of offences, and I gave some examples in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough. When the Bill has received Royal Assent, we will have to examine carefully which offences would be appropriate for proposals either for the slight reduction that I mentioned earlier, or, more importantly, whether to introduce a greater penalty for those who flagrantly exceed the speed limit and excessively commit offences and break the law. We will have to consider whether we can impose greater penalties and larger fines.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4 - Giving of fixed penalty notices by vehicle examiners

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

The clause introduces schedule 1, which will allow the vehicle examiners from the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency—VOSA—an agency of the Department for Transport, to issue fixed penalty notices in respect of those offences for which they have enforcement powers. The schedule will also empower VOSA to deal with other matters connected to the operation of the fixed-penalty system on behalf of the Secretary of State. The right of the recipient of a fixed penalty notice to request a court hearing would not be affected.

In addition, the amendments empower the Secretary of State to set up and administer a new system, similar to the one administered by the fixed-penalty clerks under part 3, to collect payment for fixed penalties and endorse driving licences, where the penalty includes endorsement. These new powers will be exercised through VOSA.

Sections 57 and 76 of the 1988 Act are amended to empower the Secretary of State to inspect and endorse the licences, without the involvement of the court—unless the points threshold for disqualification has been reached—of those drivers who have been issued with a fixed penalty notice for an endorsable offence. The driver to whom the fixed penalty is issued will be required to surrender their licence to the administration office of VOSA for endorsement action within a specified time.

Section 75 of the 1988 Act is amended to allow the VOSA examiners to issue conditional offers for those offences that are detected remotely, in line with existing police practice. It is also amended to allow for the different fixed penalty system in Scotland, whereby fixed penalty notices are substituted by conditional offers.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

For the sake of clarity, I wonder whether the Minister was straying into discussing clause 4 and schedule 1 at the same time. I do not want to say anything about schedule 1 at the moment, but I hope that we will not be precluded from having a separate debate on it.

Peter Pike (Labour, Burnley)

I will put the second Question separately, so the hon. Gentleman will be able to speak on it. We are speaking to clause 4.

David Wilshire (Conservative, Spelthorne)

I am grateful to you, Mr. Pike. Although I have been in the House of Commons for a long time—some would say too long—I am still, as a layman, mystified by the process of legislation. I imagine Bills as determining something, as most clauses do. Clause 4 simply says

''Schedule 1 contains provision about the giving of fixed penalty notices''.

How riveting that is. What on earth do we need the clause for? It does not add anything to legislation or take anything away from it. It is self-evident that schedule 1 exists—I can find it. Do we really need signposts littered about legislation that say, ''If you look carefully, you will find schedule 1 further on''? In that case, why do we not have clauses that say, ''If you keep reading, you'll find clause 6 and schedule 9''?. It seems to me unnecessary.

The Minister is too nice and gentle a man to lecture me about being otiose, but his colleague in the Department is well used to using such abrasive language about anything that I suggest. Perhaps on this occasion, if the Minister spoke to the Minister of State, he would find him also saying that the clause is unnecessary.

David Jamieson (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

As I understand it, the point is that, because the schedule refers to this part of the Bill, we need the clause to refer to the schedule and demonstrate that it is there. The hon. Gentleman felt that that was otiose. I am not sure whether it is and I think that other Bills do exactly the same thing, and have done so for a long time. A clause often refers to a schedule. That is not a recent thing. It is true that, in other clauses, more issues are often referred to as well. However, I do not think that we should be surprised by the clause. I am sure that we can draw the clause to the attention of those who wrote the Bill and, if there is any way in which drafting can be improved, I would be the first to want to learn from that.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1 - Giving of fixed penalty notices by vehicle examiners etc.

Christopher Chope (Conservative, Christchurch)

I ask the Minister to set out what the policy of the Department will be on the exercise of discretion as to whether to impose penalties under the powers set out in the schedule. There is much concern that, as soon as we get into the fixed-penalty regime, discretion will go out of the window. As a result, there would be much rough justice. I hope that the Minister will assure us that it is not the intention of the Department that every breach of any regulation that is governed by the schedule will automatically result in the imposition of a fixed penalty and that common sense and discretion will be applied in generous measure.

I also ask him about the mechanics of the handling of licences that must be endorsed. It is one thing to say, ''You can take your licence to a police station for endorsement'', because the person will probably have some control about when they get their licence back. In the schedule, we are talking—largely—about a group of professional drivers. If they have to send their licence to a department for endorsement, it may be difficult for them to continue to operate as drivers without having a licence available to them. I would be grateful if the Minister could give some assurances about the time scales in which those licences will be returned. The circumstances would be different if a penalty involved disqualification, but in the routine case of an endorsement somebody might be without their licence for a fairly long time, which could be a serious problem for a professional driver.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.